Automation at sea; an anthropological perspective
The introduction of new automated technologies promises to help improve the sustainability of the maritime industry, yet this trend is also likely to affect the numbers of people employed at sea and change the nature of their role. We spoke to Professor Cecilie Vindal Ødegaard about her work in looking at the impact of automation on the maritime industry and its workforce.
The introduction of new digital and automated technologies is expected to help the maritime industry lower costs, improve efficiency and safety, and also reduce carbon emissions. However, these technologies have also been met with a degree of ambivalence. “There are concerns that the introduction of new technologies will change the working situation of seafarers, and that they may be reduced to simply operators of machines and not making use of their skills,” says Cecilie Vindal Ødegaard, Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen, Norway. As the Principal Investigator of the ASMOG project, funded by the Research Council of Norway, Professor Ødegaard leads a research team investigating the impact of the shift towards automated technologies on the maritime industry and the people who work in it. “We’re looking at various digital and automated technologies in the project,” she outlines, “as this gives us a broader understanding of ongoing changes.”
Technological change
This research brings together six partners, including several from the maritime sector, looking to build a deeper picture of how the automation shift is affecting the industry. Part of this work involves conducting ethnographic fieldwork, observing social interactions and practices and conducting interviews with seafarers to get their views on the technologies they work with. “In general most people are fairly open towards new technology, seeing that new automated technologies will help them in their job once the technology is ‘matured’, as seafarers sometimes phrase it,” says Ødegaard. Reducing the role of the seafarer simply to someone who monitors a screen may mean specialist skills and experience become redundant however, while there are also practical concerns. “New safety and risk issues arise with the introduction of new technologies and alarm systems,” continues Ødegaard.
The project team are considering these issues from an anthropological perspective, with researchers investigating how people both on land and at sea are working with new technologies. Increased automation is leading
to the transfer of functions, responsibilities and decision-making from on board ships to land, a major area of interest to Ødegaard and fellow researcher Mads Solberg. “Our partner in the project Remota AS uses the concept ‘on-shoring’ to describe this movement of functions on-shore,” she says. This trend may well reduce the number of job opportunities available onboard ships, but it may also lead to reduced emissions. “An increasing number of
Researchers are probing how the operation of a ship is viewed from both the on-board perspective and office-based staff. The postdoc in the project, Marianna Betti, has spent time living and working with seafarers on board vessels transporting LNG around the world, which Ødegaard says has led to fresh insights. “This gives us insights into the workings of fuel shipping in the world economy and not least in everyday life on board, how seafarers
“There are concerns that the introduction of new technologies will change the situation of seafarers, and that they may be reduced to simply operators of machines and not making use of their skills.”
ships are built to run on different fuels, some of which are greener like liquid natural gas (LNG) or electrical batteries. In some operations the vessels involved would be a lot smaller, and less people would need to live on-board, hence reducing energy use,” Ødegaard says. “Issues like welfare, inclusion and gender equality are also brought to the fore as among the expected benefits of this ‘onshoring’,” Ødegaard adds, “as the movement of work functions to land is seen to facilitate work-life balance and more inclusive work opportunities.”
work, and how they relate and adapt to the development of technology,” she outlines. As the project PI, Ødegaard has been conducting simultaneous fieldwork in the head office of the shipping company Knutsen OAS, while at the same time communicating closely with her colleague at sea. “We’ve been able to share observations and send each other questions that we would like the other to find out more about, as the continual development of questions is key to anthropological fieldwork,” she says. “This also gives us a
good understanding of how the contact and communication between ship and head office plays out, these days increasingly so due to new technologies – at the same time as ship and desk staff may experience and perceive the new technology differently.”
The management of risk and safety on board ships is another major area of interest in the project, with standards changing as new technologies are introduced. Automation tends to come with an increase in the number of sensors on board a ship, and the various alarm systems can be triggered pretty regularly, raising issues of situation awareness. “With digitalisation, there’s a whole new set of possibilities and challenges for the management of safety and security at sea,” continues Ødegaard. “In the project, we are therefore interested also in exploring how digital and automated technologies may change the ways in which people relate to the ocean.”
Further fieldwork
This research is still at a relatively early stage, with Ødegaard and her colleagues planning further work at several different locations. One member of the team, Professor Ståle Knudsen, is investigating issues around the planned introduction of a remotely controlled autonomous passenger ferry at a small Norwegian town, Haugesund, while the PhDcandidate Daniel Oliver Paulsen will look at navigation technology and seamanship in the Arctic. “He will conduct fieldwork on Hurtigruten and on an oil tanker, among other things. He will be on board during both Summer and Winter, looking at the use of navigation
systems in different weather conditions,” outlines Ødegaard. New technologies may function differently in harsh environments like the Arctic, strengthening the case for retaining human staff at key locations. “For instance, when the Bjørnøya Meteo weather station became fully automated, the governor in Svalbard expressed concern for safety at sea in the area and some staff were therefore retained,” says Ødegaard.
The development of new technology even extends to the prospect of fully autonomous ships. There have been many tests of autonomous (and electric) vessels in Norwegian waters, notably the Yara Birkeland, which entered commercial operation in 2022, still with seafarers onboard however as the vessel is rigorously tested. As part of the ASMOG project’s work, a number of articles and a book will be published. Ødegaard and partner Avo Consulting have also produced reports which may hold wider relevance to the maritime industry. “We produced a report for the shipping company involved in the ASMOG project on a new digital platform they have introduced,” she explains.
The insights gained from the research are shared also at partner workshops, to which all the industrial and institutional partners in the project are invited. “These events are interesting not just for us as researchers, but also for the partners and other actors in the maritime industry,” stresses Professor Ødegaard. “We learn from them, and they can learn about our work and our observations, as well as learn from other actors in the project.”
ASMOG
Automation shift in the maritime sector of the offshore oil and gas industry
Project Objectives
The ASMOG project pilots a novel social anthropological theoretical and methodological approach to understanding the relationship between human and automated labor in maritime industries, studying automation as a complex machine-society-nature system and collaborating with industries (Knutsen OAS, Remota, AVO Consulting) and official institutions (municipality of Haugesund, Norwegian Maritime Authority). Through ethnographic studies on board on ships, on land in head offices and control rooms and following legal and political developments, the project examines the socio-cultural dynamics and changes of work relations, risk assessment and new ways of relating to the ocean.
Project Funding
The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway, MAROFF2, project no: 326758.
Researchers and Partners
Researchers: Marianna Betti, Mads Solberg, Ståle Knudsen, Kjetil Rommetveit, Daniel Oliver Paulsen, and Marta Gentilucci. https://www.uib.no/en/asmog/151592/ asmog-partners
Contact Details
Project Leader and Researcher: Professor Cecilie Vindal Ødegaard Department of Social Anthropology University of Bergen Fosswinckelsgt. 6
5007 Bergen
NORWAY
T: +47 55 58 92 71
E: cecilie.odegaard@uib.no
W: https://www.uib.no/en/asmog W: https://www.uib.no/en/persons/Cecilie. Vindal.Ødegaard
Cecilie Vindal Ødegaard is Professor of anthropology at the University of Bergen. Her research is currently focused on the re-makings of labour and nature practices with the introduction of automated technologies and the proclaimed energy transition. She is co-editor of Indigenous Life Projects and Extractivism and has published numerous research articles.
