Seite - 32 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Band 1/2015

32 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 1 2o15 Arnd Schneider | An anthropology of sea voyage I The sea voyage has long occupied poets, writers, philosophers and even cultural critics and social scientists. Whilst this paper is written in view of the specific topic of this journal issue, it is perhaps not too far-fetched to claim a particular relation of anthropology to the ‘sea’, both in terms of a subject of study and as a means through which anthropological exploration was ena- bled or carried out. An anthropology of the ‘sea’ has covered variously traditional and non-tra- ditional fishing and coastal communities, seamen working on ships, as well as off-shore work and habitats. There is no pretense here to review the enormous range of anthropological work done on topics related to the sea, port cities, the global shipping industry, and so forth. Topics covered range – to name but a few ‒ from the subsistence economies living off the sea, to maps and navigation, to the seasonal work of those working on ships, and to the expected returns from such travels, including the past (e. g. nostalgia) and future projections involved in them. 2 however, lying right at the heart of this paper, and not just a fancy epistemological twist, is the distinction (and at the same time connection) between the anthropology of the sea (and sea travel) and anthropology as sea travel. Anthropological exploration and research up until the increasing predominance of air travel in the latter part of the 20th century was largely dependent on sea travel, and in fact constructed as an enterprise of the far-away ‘other’. The substantial journey times involved provided opportunity for, and were deliberately used to, for- mulate and revise research questions, read up, and ponder the (un)expected research field and subjects lying ahead, or conversely on the return journey, contemplate and analyse the recently concluded research stay, through re-reading notes and diaries, and producing first draft manu- scripts. Before air travel, and in analogue times (as opposed to current digital times), sea travel also clearly put a temporal break and barrier between ‘us’ (the researchers, or other travelers) and ‘them’ (the subjects of study), and between metropolitan academia and remote research locations (further compounded by the long relay times of postal communication) – whilst at the same time serving as a distinct step in the rite of passage which fieldwork was to become for any novice anthropologist. Similarly, for immigrants during the age of mass migration, travelling just like the anthro- pologists also on ocean liners, sea travel signified the most important rupture in their lives. Yet the two experiences, anthropologists travelling towards a new research site, and immigrants heading for a new life – whilst structurally similar – did rarely connect. however, heuristic and epistemological insight for a possible ethnography of past transoceanic travel on regular passen- ger services (which came to an end in the 1970s) can be constructed arguably from anthropolo- gists’ testimony (mainly onboard diary entries), as I seek to demonstrate in this essay. All sea travel involves structural elements of embarkation, stay on board, and eventual dis- embarkation. Transoceanic sea travel, of course, includes many days, even months on board, and affords ample opportunity for socialization with fellow passengers, but also in terms of personal perception and rationalization of the voyage as the forward projection towards the new, and not least for anthropologists it became a site of intense personal reflection. I will start with reviewing some travels linked to explorations of archetypical sea voyages among the 2 See for example, Acheson (1981), Aubert (1965), Weibust (1969), Gell (1985), hutchins (1995), Lamvik (2001), Blount (2005), Karjalainen (2007), Markkula (2011), Sampson (2013); in relation to nostalgia Schneider (2000), and more generally, Angé/Berliner (2014).