Racializing the High Seas

While the shipping industry has been globalized for over 600 years and has relied on transnational labor for centuries, it has also long been characterized by its intense racial and ethnic divisions of labor (Frost 1995, Reid 1993, Tabili 1994). ¹ Today, the labor market for seafarers remains arguably the world's most global. Nevertheless, it is also highly stratified and seafarers from a single country, the Philippines, now dominate the lower echelons of the world merchant fleet. The more than 347,000 Filipino sailors make up approximately 28 percent of all the world's seafarers and 42 percent of those on international ships (POEA 2011). But despite their success in capturing the bottom of the market, they remain under-represented in the senior officer positions at the top of the occupational hierarchy (Wu and Sampson 2004). This significant group, which alone remits US$3.8 billion each year back to the Philippines, nevertheless remains invisible, both in the public eye and in scholarly debates about migration and race (POEA 2011).