scholarly journals Utility Manning: Young Filipino Men, Servitude and the Moral Economy of Becoming a Seafarer and Attaining Adulthood

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 580-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roderick G Galam

To get a job as a seafarer in the global maritime industry, thousands of male Filipino youths work for free as ‘utility men’ for manning agencies that supply seafarers to ship operators around the world. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and approached from a moral economy perspective, this article examines how manning agencies and utility men differentially rationalize this exploitative work (utility manning). Manning agencies use it as a technology of servitude that, through physical and verbal abuse and other techniques, enforces docility to prepare utility men for the harsher conditions on-board a ship. In contrast, utility men use it as a technology of imagination, gleaning from it a capacity to shape their future. Faced with few social possibilities in the Philippines, they deploy servitude as a strategy for attaining economic mobility and male adulthood.

2021 ◽  
pp. 136754942110179
Author(s):  
Agata Dziuban ◽  
Friederike Faust ◽  
Todd Sekuler ◽  
Justyna Struzik ◽  
Lina Bonde ◽  
...  

We use the concept of the ‘monster’ in this article as an analytical tool to grasp a variety of persons who – understood to be criminals in their countries of residence, and living with or thought to be particularly vulnerable to HIV – are perceived as threats from across the European region. Building on the field of monster studies, we focus here on strategies undertaken to shift the ‘monstrous’ towards the ‘human’ along what we describe as monster–human continuums. Relying on ethnographic fieldwork from Germany, Poland and Greece, four case studies examine processes of (re-)humanisation in the fields of migration, prisons, drug use and sex work that emerge at the intersections of humanitarianism, public health, human rights and citizenship. In particular, we propose that these strategies can entail the production of dissimilar forms of political subjectivity, the redistribution of responsibility or vulnerability and a reshuffling of blame within the moral economy of innocence and guilt – strategies that produce particular norms and forms of the human. These strategies, moreover, involve the normalisation or suppression of ‘abnormal’, ‘irrational’ or ‘guilty’ dimensions of criminalised subjects, thereby taming their capacity to confuse or confront societies’ worldviews, and ultimately foreclosing the possibility to imagine a being-in-the-world otherwise. We thus conclude by asking how embracing the monstrous might facilitate the navigation of cultural, social and moral anxieties that leave room for complex and conflicting practices and subjectivities.


Author(s):  
Gerald Pratley

PRODUCTION ACTIVITY It was not so many years ago it seems when speaking of motion pictures from Asia meant Japanese films as represented by Akira Kurosawa and films from India made by Satyajit Ray. But suddenly time passes and now we are impressed and immersed in the flow of films from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea, the Philippines, with Japan a less significant player, and India and Pakistan more prolific than ever in making entertainment for the mass audience. No one has given it a name or described it as "New Wave," it is simply Asian Cinema -- the most exciting development in filmmaking taking place in the world today. In China everything is falling apart yet it manages to hold together, nothing works yet it keeps on going, nothing is ever finished or properly maintained, and yes, here time does wait for every man. But as far...


Author(s):  
Nicole Curato

Misery rarely features in conversations about democracy. And yet, in the past decades, global audiences are increasingly confronted with spectacles of human pain. The world is more stressed, worried, and sad today than we have ever seen it, a Gallup poll finds. Does democracy stand a chance in a time of widespread suffering? Drawing on three years of field research among communities affected by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, this book offers ethnographic portraits of how collective suffering, trauma, and dispossession enlivens democratic action. It argues that emotional forms of communication create publics that assert voice and visibility at a time when attention is the scarcest resource, whilst also creating hierarchies of misery among suffering communities. Democracy in a Time of Misery investigates the ethical and political value of democracy in the most trying of times and reimagines how the virtues of deliberative practice can be valued in the context of widespread suffering.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-79
Author(s):  
Vesa Kilpi ◽  
Tomi Solakivi ◽  
Tuomas Kiiski

AbstractShipping plays an important role in the world, transporting over 80% of international trade and employing over 1.5 million seafarers. The maritime industry, including shipbuilding and equipment manufacturing, is extensive. Both of these interconnected businesses are facing rapid change caused by increasingly speedy technological development and the tightening of environmental regulation. This survey-based research analyzes the current and future competence needs of firms operating in maritime logistics and the maritime industry. The findings indicate that in both contexts, the increasing importance of various general competences is understood and the need is recognized in particular to improve those related to environmental regulation as well as technology and automation. Overall, the gap between current and desired levels of competence is expected to widen. In terms of education, this is likely to affect vocational training and university-level learning differently in that functional competences are emphasized more in the former and social and meta-competences in the latter.


2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Hutchcroft

AbstractPrevious decades' celebrations of the triumph of democracy were frequently based on mainstream analyses that displayed two major theoretical problems. First, conceptualisations of democracy based on ‘minimal pre-conditions’ commonly conflated the formal establishment ofdemocratic structureswith the far more complex and historically challenging creation ofsubstantive democracy. Second, a deductive and generally ahistorical model asserting fixed stages of ‘democratic transition’ diverted attention from deeper and more substantive examination ofstruggles for power among social forces within specific historical contexts. By adhering to minimalist conceptions of democracy and simplistic models of democratic change, mainstream analysts quite often chose to overlook many underlying limitations and shortcomings of the democratic structures they were so keen to celebrate. Given more recent concerns over ‘authoritarian undertow’, those with the normative goal of deepening democracy must begin by deepening scholarly conceptualisations of the complex nature of democratic change. This analysis urges attention to the ‘source’ and ‘purpose’ of democracy. What were the goals of those who established democratic structures, and to what extent did these goals correspond to the ideals of democracy? In many cases throughout the world, ‘democracy’ has been used as a convenient and very effective means for both cloaking and legitimising a broad set of political, social, and economic inequalities. The need for deeper analysis is highlighted through attention to the historical character of democratic structures in the Philippines and Thailand, with particular attention to the sources and purposes of ‘democracy’ amid on-going struggles for power among social forces. In both countries, albeit coming forth from very different historical circumstances, democratic structures have been continually undermined by those with little commitment to the democratic ideal: oligarchic dominance in the Philippines, and military/bureaucratic/monarchic dominance in Thailand. Each country possesses its own set of challenges and opportunities for genuine democratic change, as those who seek to undermine elite hegemony and promote popular accountability operate in very different socio-economic and institutional contexts. Efforts to promote substantive democracy in each setting, therefore, must begin with careful historical analysis of the particular challenges that need to be addressed.


Author(s):  
Steven Feldstein

This book documents the rise of digital repression—how governments are deploying new technologies to counter dissent, maintain political control, and ensure regime survival. The emergence of varied digital technologies is bringing new dimensions to political repression. At its core, the expanding use of digital repression reflects a fairly simple motivation: states are seeking and finding new ways to control, manipulate, surveil, or disrupt real or perceived threats. This book investigates the goals, motivations, and drivers of digital repression. It presents case studies in Thailand, the Philippines, and Ethiopia, highlighting how governments pursue digital strategies based on a range of factors: ongoing levels of repression, leadership, state capacity, and technological development. But a basic political motive—how to preserve and sustain political incumbency—remains a principal explanation for their use. The international community is already seeing glimpses of what the frontiers of repression look like, such as in China, where authorities have brought together mass surveillance, online censorship, DNA collection, and artificial intelligence to enforce their rule in Xinjiang. Many of these trends are going global. This has major implications for democratic governments and civil society activists around the world. The book also presents innovative ideas and strategies for civil society and opposition movements to respond to the digital autocratic wave.


Pomorstvo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 178-184
Author(s):  
Ivan Peronja ◽  
Kristijan Lenac ◽  
Roko Glavinović

Maritime industry is one of the most globally connected industries that include transportation of numerous types of goods and documents across the world. With that said, it is safe to say that abundance of financial and paper-trail transactions are made every day in order for goods to be transported from one place to another. The scope of this paper is to show that by implementing blockchain technology savings in time and money could be generated. This paper presents costs of container freights and rates in the last few years and assumes possible future costs of container freights and rates if blockchain based technology is implemented. Additionally, by using comparative method economical and time value of “traditional” bill of lading is compared with a blockchain bill of lading solution. It is also important to mention the potential impact of the blockchain technology on the world environment and ecology by reducing global paper consumption and emissions from vehicles that are used in the transportation process. This paper also gives a descriptive and comprehensive overview of current and future applications of blockchain technology in maritime industry.


2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (8) ◽  
pp. 1557-1576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saturnino M Borras ◽  
Danilo Carranza ◽  
Jennifer C Franco

2021 ◽  

The “leave no one behind” principle of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development requires appropriate indicators for different segments of a country’s population. This entails detailed, granular data on population groups that extend beyond national trends and averages. The Asian Development Bank, in collaboration with the Philippine Statistics Authority and the World Data Lab, conducted a feasibility study to enhance the granularity, cost-effectiveness, and compilation of high-quality poverty statistics in the Philippines. This report documents the results of the study, which capitalized on satellite imagery, geospatial data, and powerful machine-learning algorithms to augment conventional data collection and sample survey techniques.


2022 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 877-892
Author(s):  
Francis Balahadia ◽  

Purpose-Many educational systems across the world have shifted to online learning methodology as a measure against Covid-19 Pandemic to continue educating students. This phenomenon is causing a lot of complications to the educational system around the world in the context of developing countries, especially to the public state colleges and universities. This paper aims to identify and describe the challenges of online learning from the perspective of Information Technology Education (ITE) students in the public state colleges and universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method-It used descriptive research for the conducted of the study wherein survey questionnaires were sent out via electronic survey in different state colleges and universities in the Philippines. The evaluations were calculated using descriptive statistics and Chi-square and responses were compared between their profilesusing a nonparametric test. Results-The findings obtained the demographic profile of the ITE students with the degree of BS Information Technology, BS Computer Science, and BS Information System such courses, year level, and place they live. Additionally, the study gained a significant relationship between student profile in the device used in class, internet connectivity, student type of data connection, capability to attend online class, and their commitment to participate and submit class requirements. The study identifies different interrelated challenges such as the majority of the student only using smartphones in onlinelearning and poor internet connection as they tried to adapt to online learning because they are committed to participating and submitting requirements. Conclusion-The study gives insights into the current condition experienced by the students in the school administrations and officials, and faculty as well to strengthen the appropriate online teaching mode and other practices applicable to the students. It can also useto emphasize to be more responsive to the learning needs of the IT students, especially beyond the conventional classrooms.Recommendations-It is suggested that educational institutions must create appropriate and effective content, and provide digital literacy training to current faculty to improve learning outcomes. Lastly, a strong Information Communication Technology Office that focuses on the development of a different website and mobile application that assist the need of the students and faculty may be established.


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