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. EU-Research spoke to our own Professor Cecilie Vindal Ødegaard about her work in looking at the impact of automation on the maritime industry and its workforce.
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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."