ABSTRACT
A small German ship docked in July 1994 at Mostyn, a tiny North Wales port on the Cheshire Dee estuary. Within hours of arrival the ship’s cook, a Kiribatian, and the mate, a German, were found dead in the ship’s hold where the timber cargo had de-oxygenated the atmosphere. The particular circumstances of this case apart, what was a seaman from a small group of South Pacific islands (Kiribati was once known as the Gilbert Islands) doing aboard a small German ship trading in European waters? We might equally ask what were five Tuvaluans (Ellice Islanders) doing aboard the Germanowned, Antiguan-flagged, North Sea trader, Janne Wehr, when she called at Felixstowe in November 1992, fortunately in this instance without recorded incident to the crew? Answers to such seemingly esoteric questions call for an account of the contemporary labour market for seafarers and the wider, global structures which enfold it.
