Maritime labour, circulations of struggle, and constructions of transnational subaltern agency: the spatial politics of the 1939 Indian seafarers' strikes

Featherstone, D. (2023) Maritime labour, circulations of struggle, and constructions of transnational subaltern agency: the spatial politics of the 1939 Indian seafarers' strikes. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 55(5), pp. 1411-1432. (doi: 10.1111/anti.12790)

Abstract

This paper explores the relations between maritime labour, the circulation of struggles between different sites, and constructions of transnational subaltern agency. It does this through engaging with the interconnected strikes of Indian merchant seafarers in ports and ships across the British Empire in the Autumn of 1939. These strikes broke out after the outbreak of the Second World War and were in part mobilised against the racialised inequalities which structured maritime labour. The paper foregrounds the relations between practices of blockading ships in ports through refusing to crew them and the circulation of the strikes between ships. I argue that this combination of spatial tactics shaped transnational forms of networked subaltern agency (Balachandran 2012, Globalizing Labour? Indian Seafarers and World Shipping, c. 1870−1945). To engage with the dynamics of subaltern agency through the strikes the paper explores the relations between trajectories of organising, the circulation of demands, and the formation of solidarities.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Featherstone, Professor David
• Authors: Featherstone, D.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Geographical and Earth Sciences
• Journal Name: Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 0066-4812
• ISSN (Online): 1467-8330
• Published Online: 03 November 2021
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2021 The Author and Antipode Foundation Ltd.
• First Published: First published in Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 2021
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
300143		Transnational Politics, Anti-Colonialism and Maritime Labour: The 1939 'Global' Indian Seafarer's Strikes	David Featherstone	The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (CARNEGTR)	70693	GES - Geography