Informal Intermediaries in the Building of Social Capital Onboard Cruise Ships

Bibliographic Data

ID6015329
AuthorsAlexandra Yingst (0000-0002-8269-6587), Unnur Dís Skaptadóttir (0000-0002-8350-3898)
Year2025
Publication date2025-11-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of International Migration and Integration / Revue de l integration et de la migration internationale (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1488-3473 • E-ISSN: 1874-6365
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s12134-025-01315-4
OpenAlexW4415778930
LanguageEN
References cited20

Informal intermediaries, in the form of experienced crew members, are important to new crew members onboard cruise ships. This article demonstrates how informal intermediaries assist new crew members in building social capital onboard, which helps them adjust to a completely new environment in which they both work and live. This is especially important for female crew members, as they experience life differently from men onboard and are a minority at sea. Crew must also maintain social capital with people at home and with crew from other ships. This study, through 40 semistructured interviews of cruise ship crew, uncovers how people become intermediaries onboard cruise ships, how building social capital is beneficial to life onboard, especially for women, and how crew keep in touch with people at home and with crew they have met working at sea previously. The results of this study show that intermediaries play a large role in how crew members build social capital onboard cruise ships and that crew work to maintain their social capital transnationally while onboard and back home