Inclusion and Exclusion in the safety culture at sea

The acceleration of the globalization faces us as a nation with the challenge of adjusting our procedures and policies to accommodate foreign citizens working in Danish workplaces. In this paper I analyse data from field work voyages at sea. The data is presented in categories of bonding, bridging and linking acts inspired from research in social capital, and supplemented with acts of exclusion, all to describe the power conflicts which includes and excludes members in the unitary, divided or fragmented safety cultures that I met on board. The data shows that foreign seafarers are treated equally as long as the basic structures are not addressed. They are however treated equally on the majority´s terms, which still lead to a minority position even in the safety culture. A shared safety culture is therefore difficult to achieve.