Maritime labour, transnational political trajectories and decolonisation from below: the opposition to the 1935 British Shipping Assistance Act

Featherstone, D. J. (2019) Maritime labour, transnational political trajectories and decolonisation from below: the opposition to the 1935 British Shipping Assistance Act. Global Networks, 19(4), pp. 539-562. (doi: 10.1111/glob.12228)

Abstract

This paper uses a discussion of struggles over attempts by the National Union of Seamen to exclude seafarers form the maritime labour market in the inter-war period to contribute todebates at the intersection of maritime spaces and transnational labour geographies (cf Balachandran, 2012, Hogsbjerg, 2013). Through a focus on struggles over the British Shipping Assistance Act of 1935 it explores some of the transnational dynamics through which racialized forms of trade unionism were contested. I argue that the political trajectories, solidarities and spaces of organising constructed through the alliances which were produced to oppose the effects of the Act shaped articulations of ‘decolonisation from below’ (James, 2015). Engaging with the political trajectories and activity of activists from organisaions like the Colonial Seamen’s Association can open up both new ways of understanding the spatial politics of decolonisation and new accounts of who or how such processes were articulated and contested. The paper concludes by arguing that engagement with these struggles can help assert the importance of forms of subaltern agency in shaping processes of decolonisation.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Featherstone, Professor David
• Authors: Featherstone, D. J.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Geographical and Earth Sciences
• Journal Name: Global Networks
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 1470-2266
• ISSN (Online): 1471-0374
• Published Online: 20 February 2019
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2019 2019 Global Networks Partnership and John Wiley and Sons Ltd
• First Published: First published in Global Networks
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher