Seafaring citizenship: What being Filipino means at sea and what seafaring means for the Philippines

Abstract

This article considers international seafarers' experiences of being Filipino aboard ship. Existing scholarship on overseas Filipino workers has focused on land-based migration, neglecting the experiences of Filipino seafarers - who dominate the international seafaring labour market - and the space of the ship as an important site in which diasporic identities are mediated. The author argues that seafarers' experience of being 'in the same boat' provides a metaphor for the state's promotion of a particular form of seafaring citizenship that enables and encourages mobility.