Informal Intermediaries in the Building of Social Capital Onboard Cruise Ships

Informal intermediaries, in the form of experienced crew members, are important to new crew members onboard cruise ships. This article demonstrates how informal intermediaries assist new crew members in building social capital onboard, which helps them adjust to a completely new environment in which they both work and live. This is especially important for female crew members, as they experience life differently to men onboard and are a minority at sea. Crew must also maintain social capital with people at home and with crew from other ships. This study, through 40 semi-structured interviews of cruise ship crew, uncovers how people become intermediaries onboard cruise ships, how building social capital is beneficial to life onboard, especially for women, and how people keep in touch with people at home and crew they have met while working at sea previously. The results of this study show that intermediaries play a large role in how crew members build social capital onboard cruise ships and that crew work to maintain their social capital transnationally while onboard and back home.