Offshore but on track? Hypermobile and hyperflexible working lives

ABSTRACT

In the spring 2011, and again during summer 2012, the small coastal town of Hirtshals (approx. 6000 inhabitants) on the north-western shore of Denmark was home to two spectacular symbols of the success of an emergent offshore sector in the region, namely the upgrading and overhauling of two gigantic oil rigs. Providing temporary work for an estimated 800 persons who literally worked day and night for the 100 days each rig was at dock, these events affected the entire community. The paper presents evidence from seven biographical interviews with local men whose working lives were directly or indirectly affected by these events. As the interviews illuminate, respondents are often extremely mobile and flexible in terms of their jobs, in some cases ‘bungy jumping’ through working life in an apparent effort to retain local ties while pursuing global opportunities. The paper contributes to qualifying more general sociological discussions about the push for increased mobility and flexibility in a presumably increasingly globalising labour market reality. Ultimately, it seems that the multiple ways in which Hirtshals is marked as marginal – in terms of geography, socio-economic profile and discourse – may serve to normalise demands for flexibility and mobility, at least amongst parts of the local working population.

RÉSUMÉN

Durante la primavera 2011 y el verano 2012, la pequeña ciudad costera de Hirtshals (con aproximadamente 6000 habitantes) en las orillas del Noreste de Dinamarca acogió dos símbolos espectaculares del éxito del sector emergente de offshore en la región, esto es, la renovación y reparación de dos enormes plataformas petrolíferas. Proporcionando trabajo temporal para aproximadamente 800 personas que trabajaban literalmente día y noche durante los 100 días en los que cada plataforma petrolífera permaneció en muelle, estos acontecimientos afectaron a la comunidad entera. Este artículo presenta datos de siete entrevistas biográficas con hombres locales cuyas vidas laborales fueron afectadas de manera directa o indirecta de estos acontecimientos. Como muestran las entrevistas, los entrevistados suelen ser extremadamente móviles y flexibles en cuanto a su trabajo; en algunos casos ‘haciendo puenting’ por la vida laboral en un esfuerzo aparente por mantener los lazos locales al mismo tiempo que buscan oportunidades globales. El artículo contribuye a profundizar en los debates sociológicos más generales sobre la creciente demanda de movilidad y flexibilidad en un mercado laboral aparentemente cada vez más global. Por último, parece ser que las múltiples maneras en las que Hirtshals aparece marcado como marginal –en cuanto a su geografía, perfil socio-económico y discursivamente-pueden servir para normalizar las demandas de flexibilidad y movilidad, por lo menos entre una parte de la mano de obra local.

KEYWORDS:

• Flexibility
• mobility
• precariousness
• marginality
• biographical interviews

PALABRAS CLAVES:

• Flexibilidad
• movilidad
• precariedad
• marginalidad
• entrevistas biográficas

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Helene Pristed Nielsen is Associate Professor at FREIA Centre for Gender Research, Department of Culture and Global Studies at Aalborg University, Denmark. Together with Stine Thidemann Faber, she has been coordinator for the ‘Global Periphery’ project, which focuses on gender and diversity and how globalisation is affecting place practices and place attachment at the social level. Her general research interests revolve around issues of inclusion/exclusion of socially and politically marginalised groups. Her most recent work in English is an edited volume (with Stine Thidemann Faber) entitled Remapping gender, place and mobility: Global confluences and local particularities in Nordic Peripheries for the Ashgate series ‘Gender in a Global/Local World’ (2015). Other recent Publications include (with Karina Torp Møller) ‘Studying place practices and consumption through volunteer-employed photography’ in Journal of Consumer Culture (2014).

ORCID

Helene Pristed Nielsen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6625-0331

Notes

1. The flexicurity model consistent of three elements: flexible rules for workforce reduction in companies, security for employees in the form of entitlements to unemployment benefits and finally what is called ‘the active labour market policy’ aimed at providing training and further competences for unemployed people (LO, 2007, p. 15).

2. Calculations based on a survey (total sample size 4863). Note that the 20% does not include workers in part-time jobs, as the report concludes that these are generally covered by the same degree of protection and labour market regulation as people in full-time jobs. Mailand and Larsen refer to an estimate of 28% of the Danish workforce holding ‘an employment contract that no longer reflects the traditional permanent full-time position’ (2011, p. 4).

3. Hovgaard's (2015) empirical work on Faroese long-distance workers also points to how place and community may figure as extremely important in making decisions about working life options – even for sailors who tend to spend long spells of time away from home. Also recent work by Gerrard (2013) points out how Norwegian fishermen may choose a working life involving longer travelling distances to bridge demands of working life and family life.

4. A type of oil rig essentially consisting of a buoyant hull and legs that can be moved up and down – meaning that the legs can be raised from the sea floor and the rig can be dragged to a new location for new exploration or ashore for maintenance or scrapping.

5. Hirtshals Harbour accounted for 19.3% of tax revenues in the municipality in 2012 (NIRAS, 2012, p. 15).

6. Mærsk Guardian was at dock between 29 April and 24 July 2011, and Mærsk Giant between 28 June and 21 September 2012.

7. Ninety-three news articles were retrieved from Infomedia, published in both regional and national newspapers, as well as more specialised magazines such as ‘Transport Tidende’ [Transportation News] or FiskerForum.com [Fisherman's Forum]. Infomedia functions as an online database storing a majority of Danish print and online media news. A search was made for the terms ‘Mærsk Guardian’ and ‘Mærsk Giant’, and all individual and company names mentioned in the articles were listed and used as a baseline for finding potential respondents.

8. Such as interviewing procedures recommended, for example, by Horsdal (2011).

9. All respondents have signed a written consent form in relation to the interview, and all have been given the opportunity to review and comment upon both their individual timeline as well as the interview transcript. All respondents have been assigned a pseudonym in the ensuing analysis, and the greatest possible care has been taken to render them anonymous, although total anonymity may be hard to achieve, especially from local readers, and, indeed, neither has this been promised. The mode of transcription has been pragmatic, generally ‘translating’ local dialect to standard Danish and omitting most non-verbal expressions. This obviously constitutes a simplification of the data set, but given the analytic focus on the role of place and time in navigating through their working lives, a decision was made that content would take precedence over form. All quotes from respondents in the article have been translated to English from the Danish original.

10. By contrast, it was my impression that few actually read the entire interview transcript.

11. None of the respondents held university-level educations, but Otto had added a management degree to his CV late in his working life.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by Det Obelske Familiefond.