MERMAIDS: (En)Gendering Maritime Labour and Business Histories
The aim of this conference is to highlight the modalities through which gender norms shaped or influenced labour market participation, and business and labour cultures in the maritime sector and wider industries and services in European port/emporium cities and maritime communities in Modern times (the nineteenth and twentieth centuries).
While gender approaches have begun to penetrate maritime history in the last few decades in an increasingly significant way, further work must be done in order to create a more gender inclusive, composite and fruitful history of labour and business in the maritime industry. As for women’s labour market participation and business activities in the maritime sector, we know that one does not need to go to the sea to be part of maritime workforce. For women, work, career and entrepreneurial opportunities in the maritime industry included roles such as moneylenders, ship-owners, fisherwomen, fishmongers and workers in fish processing factories, journey[wo]men at the ports or shipyards and, last but not least, sex workers.
It is also important to consider aspects relating to domesticity, and to the variations in the distribution of power between genders – within the family and in other socio-economic contexts – in maritime environments. In Mediterranean port/emporium cities, as in Early Modern and Modern times, women were entrusted with weaving the socio, economic, cultural – and even political – relational fabric that their men would “wear” to act in the public arena.
The workshop will be held on February 9-11, 2022 via Zoom. Registration is not required; this event is open to the public. Participants may join using the conference Zoom link. (link: https://uni-lj-si.zoom.us/j/97977724427; ID Zoom: 979 7772 4427).
The conference is organized in the framework of the MSCA-IF Project 2019 “We Can Do It! Women’s labour market participation in the maritime sector in the Upper Adriatic after the World Wars in an intersectional perspective” (acronym: WeCanIt; grant agreement no. 894257).
Conference Program
All times listed are in Central European Time
February 9, 2022
9:45 CET – OPENING ADDRESS
Marta Verginella (ERC Project EIRENE – University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) and Erica Mezzoli (MSCA Project WeCanIt – University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)
10:00 CET – KEYNOTE LECTURE
Valerie Burton (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada): “Re-Presenting Women’s Maritime Past: An Historian’s Keynote for the Mermaids Conference” DISCUSSION
15:00 CET – 1st SESSION: Women into the Deep. Labour on Board and Surrounding
Chair: Peter Cole (Western Illinois University, USA)
Tomas Nilson (Halmstad University, Sweden) & Aneli Blom (Maritime Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden): “‘Hard Work and Sweet Love’: The Leisure Life of Women Stewardesses on the Swedish-American Line during 1960-70s”
Kathy S. Mason (University of Findlay, USA): “A Woman’s Place is in the Lighthouse: U.S. Light Keepers on the Great Lakes”
15:45 CET – Coffee break
Justine Cousin (University of Caen Normandy, France): “Titanic Stewardesses across Gender Roles”
John Odin Jensen (University of West Florida, USA): “(En)Gendering the Inland Seas: Sailing Women and Domestic Labor Afloat and Ashore in Industrializing America, 1870-1910”
DISCUSSION
February 10, 2022
10:00 CET – 2nd SESSION: Undines: Women, Fisheries and Maritime Communities
Chair: Erica Mezzoli (WeCanIt – University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Tanja Petrović (Institute of Culture and Memory Studies – ZRC-SAZU, Slovenia): “Women in Fish Canning Factories in the North-eastern Adriatic during Yugoslav Socialism”
Ariana Dominguez Garcia (University of the Balearic Island, Spain): “Women’s Social Capital in the Traditional Small-Scale Fishing Communities of Mallorca (Spain)”
10:45 – Coffee break
Luisa Muñoz Abeledo (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain): “Gender and Labour Markets in Maritime Industries: a Century of Labour History in Spanish Fish Canning Sector”
Alexandra Lee Yingst (University of Iceland, Iceland): “The Quality of Life of Women in the Icelandic Fish Processing Industry”
DISCUSSION
14:30 – 3rd SESSION: Gendering the Waterfront. Women, Ports, and Gender Roles in Maritime Labour
Chair: Sabine Rutar (IOS-Regensburg, Germany)
Andrew MacDonald (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa): “From Mermaids to Barmaids: Fabular Women in Southeast African Ports, 1870s-1940s”
Antonia Morey-Tous & Andreu Segui-Beltran (University of the Balearic Islands, Spain): “Present and Absent Women: Gender and Labour Market in the Balearic Mediterranean Waterfront (ca. 1930)”
14:45 – Coffee break
Gila Hadar (Haifa University, Israel): ‘‘La Serena’: Mermaids on the Thessaloniki Sea Shore”
Pirita Frigren (University of Turku, Finland): “Contributing to the Maritime Economy on Shore: Merchant Sailors’ Wives in the Finnish Port-Cities in the Nineteenth Century”
DISCUSSION
February 11, 2022
10:00 CET – 4th SESSION: An Officer and a Gentle[wo]man. Gender, Navies, and Hierarchies
Chair: Jordi Ibarz Gelabert (University of Barcelona, Spain)
Jeremy Young (Valor International Scholars, South Korea): “Women in the War Navies in the 18th Century”
Nadja Terčon (Pomorski muzej-Museo del Mare ‘Sergej Mašera’ in Piran-Pirano, Slovenia): “Sava in Jolanda: prvi slovenski in jugoslovanski izšolani pomorščakinji” (“Sava and Jolanda: the First Slovenian and Yugoslav Women Trained Seafarers”)
10:45 – Coffee break
Elin Jones (University of Exeter, UK): “Domesticity Below Decks: Gender, Space and Domestic Labour on the Eighteenth-Century Warship”
Helen Berry (University of Exeter, UK): “Marginal economies: Jewish Traders, ‘Bum Boat’ Women and the Supply of Goods and Services to Ordinary Seamen in the British Royal Navy, 1770-1830”
14:00 CET – 5th SESSION: “Call me Ishmael[a]”. When Class, Gender, and Ethnicity Matter
Chair: Dimitra-Chrysoula Kardakari (Ionian University – IMS-Forth, Greece)
Shai Srougo (Haifa University, Israel): “Ethnicity and Masculinity in Cargo-Handling Services: a Jewish Male-Dominated Space in the Port of Thessaloniki”
Erica Mezzoli (MSCA WeCanIt – University of Ljubljana, Slovenia): “Set of Queens. Women Shipowners in the Upper Adriatic, 1879-1923”
14:45 – Coffee break
Jordi Ibarz Gelabert & Mònica Borrell-Cairol (University of Barcelona, Spain): “Maritime Labour Market and Appearance of Women in Dock Work in Spanish Ports at the End of the 19th Century”
DISCUSSION
16:00 CET – CONCLUDING REMARKS
Valerie Burton (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada) converses with Ariana Dominguez Garcia (University of the Balearic Island, Spain) and Alexandra Lee Yingst (University of Iceland, Iceland)
