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What market mechanisms mean : transforming institutions and livelihoods in Bulgarian maritime employment
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Kremakova, Milena (2012) What market mechanisms mean : transforming institutions and livelihoods in Bulgarian maritime employment. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b2582716~S1
Abstract
This thesis analyses the effects of marketisation and globalisation on individual
working lives, using the case of employment in the maritime shipping
industry in post-socialist Bulgaria (1989-2009).
The emergence of new market mechanisms under the combined impacts of
post-socialist political and economic change, EU-accession, and globalisation,
is analysed using convention theory and the capability approach. A situated
micro-sociological case study of maritime institutions and working lives was
conducted in the course of nine months of fieldwork in the period 2008-2010. The concept of a 'new post-socialist spirit of capitalism' is developed,
following Boltanski & Chiapello (2005[1999]), and substantiated by empirical
evidence from 52 in-depth interviews, documents and media reports, and
non-participant observation.
This thesis contributes to several areas of enquiry: post-socialism; employment;
maritime studies; and studies of the lifecourse and working lives. Using
the example of maritime employment, it draws out connections between
macroinstitutional transformations, labour market conventions, individual
working lives, and subjective perceptions of change. The study reveals a
number of problems: the increasingly precarious nature of the post-socialist
maritime labour market; the insufficient accountability and legal control over
the quality of maritime jobs offered by global shipowners; the segmentation
of the maritime labour market into 'good' and 'bad' jobs, some lacking basic
employment security, social or legal protection for maritime workers, and
even workplace safety; the lack of alternative avenues for meaningful careers
for former seafarers; the declining popularity of maritime professions; the
deprofessionalisation and loss of dignity and meaning in maritime labour;
increasingly fragmented career trajectories; and the dissolution of local maritime
communities. These problems, not restricted to Bulgaria, indicate the
need for concerted supra-national public (labour and social) policies targeting
maritime workers at the level of the EU and other international organisations.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Shipping -- Bulgaria, Bulgaria -- Economic conditions, Employment -- Bulgaria, Labor market -- Bulgaria | ||||
Official Date: | April 2012 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Department of Sociology | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Whiteside, Noel ; Clarke, Simon, 1946- | ||||
Sponsors: | University of Warwick | ||||
Extent: | xiii, 416 p. : ill. | ||||
Language: | eng |
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