Navigating Postsocialism: Bulgarian Seafarers’ Working Lives before and after 1989

Abstract

The collapse of state socialism in 1989 reshaped the maritime industries in East European countries. Based on an ethnographic study of Bulgarian maritime and waterfront workers, this article examines how shipping mobilities changed after 1989. This case study provides a unique vantage point for understanding the experiences of two generations in a stormy world of work. Before 1989, many countries in the Soviet Bloc had successful merchant navies. Fleets and transport infrastructures were owned and managed by each state, but also coordinated transnationally via the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON). Seafarers were a unique occupational group under state socialism. While they had more access to international mobility than other occupational groups, their economic and political freedom was still limited. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Bulgarian shipping industry joined the global market almost overnight. The profound social, economic, and political transformations unleashed by the change of regime coincided with the rapid internationalization, technological and security innovations, and marketization that were reshaping the maritime industry worldwide at the time. These overlapping transformations radically changed the working lives of Bulgarian seafarers, opening new opportunities for some, but also creating dramatic social inequalities in the formerly tight maritime community and shifting the balance between mobility and fixity of maritime labor. Bulgarian seafarers found themselves “at sea” in two ways simultaneously: not just employed in mobile and international workplaces, but also adapting to a society and job market in flux.