Navigating Global Labour Studies with Bourdieu: insights from Romania’s seafaring history

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research in Global Labour Studies is mostly based on the work of Karl Polanyi. It aims to demonstrate that a ‘disembedding’ process is leading to the formation of a global ‘labour market’. This analytical scheme does not consider the historical struggles over the definition of the legitimate skills and qualifications needed for a profession; it does not allow one to study the confrontations over the training of workers that take place at the intersection of global logics and local constraints. Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of field allows a better understanding of these power relations. This leads us to consider that national fields still weigh heavily, in combination with a transnational field. An empirical investigation of the training of seafarers in Romania exemplifies the potential contributions of this approach.