Page 173 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 173
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A Respected Profession After All:
Work Structures and Self-Perceptions
of Hamburg Dock Workers After 1950
Janine Schemmer
University of Klagenfurt, Department of Cultural Analysis
Dock work – experiences and narrations. Introduction
Since the 1960s, with the arrival of the container, the working reality has
changed in ports worldwide. The success story of the container and the
radical changes it brought are well known and academically researched
(Levinson 2006). While dock work in some former port cities merely plays
a marginal role today, other ports, like Hamburg, have been able to main-
tain their status as an important reloading point. Hamburg is suited to
an analysis of the technical transformation and its effects on work con-
ditions as the port still plays a major role in the city’s economy and pub-
lic image (Rodenberg 2008) – despite enormous job cuts. In addition, the
dock worker’s profession has always received a lot of media attention, and
several formats have contributed to the image and the local anchorage of
the domain.
As the perspective of the workers themselves received hardly any at-
tention within this process, narrations on these transformations were at
the core of my doctoral thesis (Schemmer 2018a). My ethnographic study
analyses the actors’ experiences and positions connected to the effects
of technical transformations on individual biographies and collective
work practices. It provides insights into social and cultural spaces, and
the ways the workers subjectively cope with the changed working envi-
ronment, accelerated work rhythms, and the disappearance of numerous
colleagues. This process is to be considered against the background of ur-
ban development in port cities and the musealization of dock work, influ-
encing individual as well as collective experiences.
Mellinato, Giulio, Aleksander Panjek, eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime
Port Cities: The Northern Adriatic in a Comparative Perspective.
Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem. https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-191-9.173-195
173
A Respected Profession After All:
Work Structures and Self-Perceptions
of Hamburg Dock Workers After 1950
Janine Schemmer
University of Klagenfurt, Department of Cultural Analysis
Dock work – experiences and narrations. Introduction
Since the 1960s, with the arrival of the container, the working reality has
changed in ports worldwide. The success story of the container and the
radical changes it brought are well known and academically researched
(Levinson 2006). While dock work in some former port cities merely plays
a marginal role today, other ports, like Hamburg, have been able to main-
tain their status as an important reloading point. Hamburg is suited to
an analysis of the technical transformation and its effects on work con-
ditions as the port still plays a major role in the city’s economy and pub-
lic image (Rodenberg 2008) – despite enormous job cuts. In addition, the
dock worker’s profession has always received a lot of media attention, and
several formats have contributed to the image and the local anchorage of
the domain.
As the perspective of the workers themselves received hardly any at-
tention within this process, narrations on these transformations were at
the core of my doctoral thesis (Schemmer 2018a). My ethnographic study
analyses the actors’ experiences and positions connected to the effects
of technical transformations on individual biographies and collective
work practices. It provides insights into social and cultural spaces, and
the ways the workers subjectively cope with the changed working envi-
ronment, accelerated work rhythms, and the disappearance of numerous
colleagues. This process is to be considered against the background of ur-
ban development in port cities and the musealization of dock work, influ-
encing individual as well as collective experiences.
Mellinato, Giulio, Aleksander Panjek, eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime
Port Cities: The Northern Adriatic in a Comparative Perspective.
Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem. https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-191-9.173-195
173
