Risteäviä eroja sataman arjessa - Helsinki.fi

Abstract
The study analyses representations of dock workers and people who worked
in the Helsinki and Kotka harbours in the extended 1950s. The aim of the
study is to map differences and hierarchies constructed in the harbour
representations. The main sources of the study are interviews of men and
women who worked in the harbours. The second important group of research
material is films, both documentaries and fiction, depicting freight harbours.
The study is hermeneutic and is based on the key concepts of
intersections and intertextuality. Representations of harbours and people
who worked there are studied within the framework of intersections: not only
was the harbour a different working environment for men and women, but
for different kinds of men and women. The most important intersections in
this study are between gender, ethnicity, class and age. The method of the
study is performative reading. Performative reading is a process based on a
close reading of the sources. The question posed to the sources is, how are
the categories of differences being constructed and how do they intersect?
Globally, Finland is quite exceptional because women have worked in
harbours. The construction of differences between women is most obvious in
the sources concerning differences constructed by the dock worker women in
relation to prostitutes who worked in the harbour. On the other hand, in a
nostalgic light the stigmatized prostitutes become protagonists of a relaxed
and hedonistic lifestyle. In the representations concerning male dockers,
differences between the respectable workers and tearaways dominate the
intertextual negotiations. Ports as nodes of international seafaring make
interesting arenas for studying transnational relations. In Kotka, many of the
town people saw the sailors as important customers for their businesses and
their relations with the sailors were mostly commercial. The harbour
representations can be read as a dream of an international and liberal
Finland.
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