Masculinity,humour and the making of maritime infrastructure: An ethnography aboard an icebreaker

Abstract

This article contributes to scholarship on navigation, infrastructure and masculinity by examining the microculture of infrastructure-making aboard the icebreaker Frost in the Baltic Sea. We ask how a key component of Northern maritime infrastructure – upholding winter navigation routes – is enacted through the routine work of Frost’s crew; which socio-cultural and material-structural factors organize this infrastructure-making, and how these dynamics shape the work and identities of the icebreaker’s officers. Our analysis, based on 10 days of fieldwork aboard Frost and interviews with crew members and ship company staff, shows how infrastructure-making on Frost’s bridge both enacts and depends on a masculine microculture centred on demanding labour performed by skilful, resilient men. Humour is central in constructing this form of seamanship: joking during operations relieves stress and strengthens a sense of togetherness but also regulates the onboard social hierarchy, and banter about toughness reinforces norms of robust masculinity. Beyond humour, masculinities are articulated through embodied skills in manoeuvring the vessel and sensing the icy environment, further bolstered by tropes of superiority. Alongside these overtly masculine expressions, the onboard microculture includes subtler meanings of icebreaking, such as appreciating the beauty of the icy seascape and the joy of being offshore, tied to the ideal of ‘seafarer freedom’. In practice, these experiences are enabled by masculine characteristics aligned with capitalism’s instrumental values, including vessel mastery and safe, skilful navigation. At the same time, joy, aesthetics and freedom are also valued as ends in themselves, irreducible to economic aims.

Introduction

We pierce through a slush floe made of ice floes that have drifted and piled up and frozen together. We’re close to a ship that may soon be needing assistance. I observe steering officers Otto and Mika at work, stunned by the peace and ease of their conduct. Mika estimates that ‘the ice is only 10 cm thick’. ‘No, this is at least 50 cm’, Otto, who is more experienced, calmly corrects. Officer 3 asks Officer 1 about compression. ‘There’s no compression here. You can see it when you look at the edges of the channel that we’re opening’, he explains to Officer 3. ‘Now the ice is becoming more piled up. These are devilish ice floes. The ship near us gets stuck. We go to help right away, reversing towards it through the thick ice. Otto swiftly changes from one rudder to the other and takes up engine number 4, which will enable quicker movements if the ships come too close. He instructs Mika to communicate with the ship. The men’s movements are a calm choreography. Nothing about it falters. (Excerpt 1, Fieldnotes)

The officers are on duty aboard the icebreaker Frost (pseudonym) in the Gulf of Bothnia, the northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden. Seafaring constitutes one of the world’s key infrastructures, with 90% of the world’s trade moving by ship (Marine Finland, 2025). In the Baltic Sea, the first ice typically forms in October or November along the coastal areas of the northern Bay of Bothnia and the inner Gulf of Finland, while the melting process generally begins in April. Throughout this period, eight Finnish and five Swedish icebreakers ensure the movement of people and goods (Bergström & Kujala, 2020).

In the present study, we enquire into the daily work of Frost, the leading coordinator icebreaker in part of the Gulf of Bothnia. It operates as a key hub guaranteeing that Northern maritime infrastructure does not falter even when conditions are extreme. We ask how a crucial part of that infrastructure – namely, upholding wintertime navigation routes – is enacted through the routine tasks of the icebreaker’s crew. More specifically, we examine which socio-cultural and material-structural factors organize this micro-scale infrastructure-making and how these dynamics shape the work and identities of the icebreaker’s officers.

To address these questions, we employ a framework that combines insights from navigation, infrastructure and masculinity studies, complemented by studies of humour, to guide our ethnographic analysis. By tracing the crew’s socio-cultural interactions aboard Frost, we identify two experiential fields that underpin the everyday infrastructure-making: joking and circulating tropes about seafaring. Across these fields, a masculine microculture of demanding labour – performed by skilful and resilient men – emerges as foundational in organizing and shaping both nautical practice and the lived experience of icebreaking. At the same time, these embodied competences and cultural meanings are intertwined not only with the sailor identity and the ideal of ‘seafarer freedom’ but also with the broader capitalist infrastructures of maritime trade. To examine these issues in depth, we begin by outlining our conceptual framework and presenting the research setting and methodological approach. Next, we briefly contextualize our case, followed by a three-part analysis of the social life of icebreaking. The final section situates the findings in relation to previous studies and presents the article’s conclusions.

Theoretical framework: Navigation through scales, infrastructure-making and masculinities

Social studies of navigation are scattered because, as Boersma (2024) notes, ‘navigation is a situated practice where the many local variables make it difficult to generalise’ (p. 240). This situational character is reflected in the dominance of ethnographic approaches to studying navigation: to capture how masculine maritime labour is mobilized through Philippine state–economy relations and cultural politics, focusing on work in ports in Manila and Oakland and aboard container ships crossing the Pacific (Fajardo, 2011); the pressures of goods transported along the Indian Hooghly River in the grip of bureaucratic and capitalist trade structures (Bear, 2015); the multifaceted and risky practices of Scottish fishermen vis-a-vis intensifying commodification and changing marine-ecological conditions in the North Sea (McCall Howard, 2017); phatic communication onboard cargo ships and its formalization under neoliberal reforms in Newark and Montreal (Das, 2018); and the structurally conditioned practices in and mediated connections between control rooms and riverboats in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany’s Ruhr region (Boersma, 2024). Although each of these studies is methodologically anchored in specific field sites and local contexts, the overall inspiration we draw from them is their ability to shift scale – attending both to the nuances of situated practices and the sociability of navigation and to the broader structural and environmental forces with which they are entangled. Rephrased more theoretically, they combine the micro-phenomenological with the macro–material–structural and pay attention to power in analysing their specific interrelations.

This combination also underpins our second locus of inspiration: the wider body of critical infrastructure research spanning science and technology studies to sociology, anthropology and human geography. Infrastructures, in short, are ‘built networks that facilitate the flow of goods, people, or ideas and allow for their exchange over space’, or simply ‘matter that enables the movement of other matter’ (Larkin, 2013, pp. 328, 329). Maritime infrastructure enables the movement of goods and people, and in Northern waters like the Gulf of Bothnia its smooth operation during the icy season relies crucially on the work of icebreakers. Yet infrastructures do not merely enable the circulation of diverse goods; they are also made up of these socio-material components, from tracks, vehicles, machines, devices, standards, checklists and software to habits, norms and skills. Moreover, because they are comprised of multifaceted entanglements of diverse elements, infrastructures require constant maintenance across locations. Consequently, officers on Frost’s bridge, much like push-boat skippers on rivers, ‘do not use nautical infrastructure as if it were something external to them, but they are constantly infrastructuring’ as they keep the lanes open and assist vessels through icy seas (Boersma, 2024, p. 242). Approaching icebreaking as infrastructure-making directs our attention to its crucial role in the continual upholding of the Northern maritime trade infrastructure and encourages us to zoom in on the critical loci, such as Frost’s bridge, where disruption would imperil the entire system (Silvast & Virtanen, 2019).

At the same time, infrastructures are neither neutral nor merely functional circulators that require upkeep; they are also ‘governing’ in that they exert power (Silvast & Virtanen, 2024). First, among the goods, people and concepts that circulate through infrastructures are ideals – such as objectives of intensifying market integration and enhancing efficiency – which reshape labour regimes. In Finnish icebreaking, for instance, these ideals contribute to a more flexible workforce and lower competence requirements affecting the daily work onboard. Second, the continual making and remaking of infrastructures shapes subjectivities through bodily practices, behavioural expectations and cultural frameworks. For our purposes, a key dimension of the subject-formation of icebreaker crew members is seafaring masculinity.

As icebreaking work in Finland has until very recently been almost entirely male, examining the work’s socio-cultural aspects onboard in relation to maintaining the broader infrastructure demands attention to the gendered dimensions of this entanglement. By focusing on gendered aspects of infrastructure-making, our study also responds to a long-standing call to examine the operation of masculinities in ‘politics, management, associations and friendship and support networks’ (Hearn & Lattu, 2002, p. 56). Internationally, masculinity studies have long examined powerful, gendered institutions and their entanglement with global forces (Connell, 1996, 2003), yet analyses of masculinity in infrastructure-making remain scarce. Chowdhury’s (2021, 2023) work on Kolkata’s transport infrastructures provides a notable exception.

A core inspiration we draw from Chowdhury’s (2021) rich ethnographic analysis is its effort to foreground the often-backgrounded co-constitution of infrastructures and masculinities and to do so through a microsociological lens: analysing infrastructures as constituted through gendered interactions and gendered interactions as shaped by infrastructural arrangements by attending to how gender is done in ‘everyday interactions with infrastructural arrangements’ (p. 75). Similarly to Chowdhury’s (2021) study of autorickshaw driving in Kolkata, we approach icebreaking in the Baltic Sea as ‘a social field where rituals . . . are learned and performed as specifically gendered acts’, and infrastructures ‘mediate’ this ‘interactional order of the everyday’ seafarer sociability through ‘regimes of masculinity’ (pp. 86, 87).

The second key relevance for our purposes lies in Chowdhury’s (2021, 2023) analytical focus on the intersection of material – both in terms of physical roads and vehicles and as a means of making a living – and normative-cultural dimensions in interactional and gendered infrastructure-making. Bringing both these insights to our case allows us to connect the two analytical dimensions highlighted above: infrastructures as circulators of ideals and infrastructure-making as shaping subjectivities. Alongside economic-rational styles of reasoning, cultural norms and values also both underpin and circulate through infrastructures. These ideals, in turn, shape those engaged in sustaining the system – for instance, by defining what counts as the normal and proper way of being an icebreaker crew member in the Gulf of Bothnia’s extreme conditions. Consequently, icebreaking work as infrastructure-making is connected to both material and socio-cultural factors that operate across scales and shape and circulate through the infrastructure, with both dimensions intersecting with gender. We deploy this framework to guide our ethnographic analysis and enrich it with scholarship focused on the nuances of onboard practices and skills (Pálsson, 1994; Thorlindsson, 1994), alongside studies of gendered technological engagement (Mellström, 2004) and humour that intersect with microsocial practices (Collinson, 1988; Kehily & Nayak, 1997; Zijderveld, 1968).

Research setting: Doing ethnography aboard Frost

Building on this analytical framework, we ask how a crucial part of the Northern maritime infrastructure – the upkeep of wintertime navigation routes – is enacted through the routine tasks of Frost’s crew. More specifically, we examine which socio-cultural and material-structural factors organize this micro-scale infrastructure-making and how these dynamics shape the work and identities of the icebreaker’s officers.

To address these questions in detail, the first author conducted a 10-day ethnographic fieldwork on a critical hub in the maritime infrastructure: the bridge of Frost. The bridge functions as both the control room of the ship’s operations and a critical node in the Northern maritime infrastructure and is continuously staffed by two to four crew members. The thrust of the research data was created during intensive observation of the work of the captain and four officers on the bridge and conversations with these officers and mechanics during and outside working hours. Except for one cook, the entire crew consisted of white Finnish men aged 25 to 60, and of them, the bridge crew was made up of five men aged 34 to 55. The first author followed the crew’s planning, coordination and execution of 10 daily icebreaking and assistance operations, as well as their communication with the Vessel Traffic Service (VTS), harbours, other icebreakers and assisted vessels, from early morning through late-night shifts. During fieldwork, the author also joined crew meals and leisure activities and spent time in the mechanics’ office. In total, the author spent approximately 10 hours per day with the crew. For most of the time on the bridge, the author was positioned about a metre away from the steering and navigating officers.

These observations, together with dozens of hours of work-related conversations, constitute the primary body of the research data. Additionally, the first author conducted hour-long individual and group interviews with the captain, three bridge officers and two senior mechanical engineers. The interviews were focused on basic information and perspectives on icebreaking training, skill and risk management. Group interviews were conducted because they needed to take place over the course of daily work. On land, the first author also carried out individual and group interviews with three safety management officials at the icebreaking company to contextualize the icebreaking work and the changes it is facing.

The limited 10-day access to onboard fieldwork followed a months-long negotiation process involving three of the four authors: one who had previously conducted extensive interviews with icebreaking crews, and two who interviewed office staff prior to the fieldwork. The duration of the fieldwork had been agreed upon in advance, and the shipping company was not willing to extend it. This limitation is understandable; having an additional person present during operations that demand heightened concentration for safety reasons can become a distraction. Similar constraints have been noted by Boersma (2024, p. 237) and are reflected in the duration of other maritime ethnographies – most notably, Hutchins’s (1995) classic study was likewise based on 10 days of fieldwork.

The first author, a 38-year-old Finnish woman at the time of the empirical research, conducted the ethnographic fieldwork in Finnish, her and the bridge crew’s mother tongue. Her positionality played an important role in the process that shaped the ultimate research focus. Aspects of fieldwork, such as her gendered presence onboard (further highlighted by pregnancy), and safety requirements restricting her close observation of real-time use of nautical technology, were crucial in shaping the analytical lens. Equally important was the attention she paid as a woman and an outsider to men’s experiences of icebreaking to the microsociology of masculine humour – an aspect of the analytical process that grew from her understanding of the importance of humour for successful icebreaking during the fieldwork. Her gender and training in anthropological research – facts that the crew were aware of – also together facilitated fieldwork conversations about the culture of icebreaking, as most of the bridge officers were keen to explain to her not only basic technical facts about icebreaking but also deeper meanings that they attached to work and its relation to other aspects of their lives. While she was generally interested in the media and technology the crew used, she had no prior training in it and could only receive guidance from the crew during quieter moments on the bridge. Lastly, while the fieldwork was short in duration, several late-night conversations on the bridge enabled open and relaxed communication between the first author and the crew, including jokes about the first author. To a degree, this helped foster the crew’s willingness to continue to engage in work-related conversations with her until the end of fieldwork.

It is, however, important to note that the fieldwork coincided with labour negotiations, and referring to them, two crew members raised concerns about the first author’s ‘true’ intentions. She sought to dispel the concerns by explaining in depth about the objective of the study. Also, to build the greatest degree of trust possible under these circumstances, the first author took all notes by hand and did not record any conversations or interviews. As a result, the focus of the article was shaped through the everyday practices of negotiating trust and access.

The research was conducted collaboratively by the first and second authors. The second author is a 40-year-old Finnish male sociologist and senior lecturer in the discipline. Fieldwork and ethnographic data collection onboard were undertaken by the first author, while the second author was primarily responsible for developing the research design and theoretical framework. Both authors contributed equally to the analytical work. The second author led the drafting of the manuscript and served as the corresponding author throughout the submission and review process.

The authors’ different positions in relation to the field shaped both access and interpretation. The first author’s onboard presence enabled close engagement with everyday practices and interactions, while the second author’s distance from the field facilitated comparative interpretation and theoretical abstraction. The second author’s expertise in general sociology informed interactions with academic audiences and contributed to shaping the analytical framing through which the empirical material was rendered publishable and legible within sociological discussions. These interpretations were developed reflexively through ongoing dialogue with the first author’s ethnographic observations from the field.

The third author, a 37-year-old Mexican/Finnish male, participated in the original planning of the research conducted. He also participated in correspondence and in the analysis of discussions with the company’s representatives onboard, which were conducted to agree on the ethnographic research on the icebreaker. The author is a university professor leading a research group on safe and efficient marine systems. His expertise in the management of safety in wintertime ship operations provided support for the coordination of the action plan for the research visit to the icebreaker and the review of safety management procedures for wintertime navigation in the northern Baltic Sea.

The fourth author, a 61-year-old Finnish male, participated in the planning of the fieldwork and the correspondence and face-to-face discussions with the shipping company representatives to agree on the formalities of the ethnographic engagement on the icebreaker. His positionality as a university professor and leader of the research consortium in which the empirical research was conducted, facilitated getting access to the icebreaker – particularly as the security procedures on icebreakers proved to have been made considerably stricter at the time of the research.

Before diving into the ethnographic analysis, we briefly depict the current context of Frost’s work in the Baltic Sea.

Analysis: The social life of icebreaking in transition

Ship navigation is particularly demanding due to ‘three factors: ships are massive objects; ships are slow to respond to change in speed and direction; ships often operate in restricted and/or congested waters’ (Bailey et al., 2006, p. 343). Navigating and operating an icebreaker is even more challenging because travelling through ice differs from moving in open water in many respects: bad weather, pressure on hulls and ice accumulation on superstructures make sailing through ice perilous, and even an ostensibly minor error or malfunction can have detrimental or even disastrous consequences (Boström, 2018). Icebreaking also carries heightened responsibility because icebreakers serve as critical infrastructural hubs and elemental nodes within the global transport system. The work onboard Frost is continuously connected to multiple operators such as the VTS, the Finnish Meteorological Institute, other icebreakers, cargo ships and shipping companies via diverse media, including satellite maps, radars, IBNET and telephone.

The critical labour of infrastructure-making comes to a head in Frost’s escorting, convoying and towing of other vessels. During all these operations bridge officers remain in constant motion – assessing conditions, coordinating internally and with external operators, and making swift decisions in response to moving ice, changing weather and the requirements of assisted ships. As icebreaking is more technically demanding and dangerous than regular shipping, it necessitates a larger, specially skilled and more experienced bridge complement. Unlike cargo ships, on which it is common for only one officer at a time to work the bridge shift, there are always two bridge officers onboard Frost. One is the chief officer in charge of steering the ship, and the other is the second officer, whose responsibilities include managing the motors while breaking ice, communicating with other actors, and filling out operations reports. In addition, the ship’s captain oversees the planning of operations and plays an active role in leading operations that are challenging for the steering pilot.

The fact that icebreaking requires more skill is also evident in the officers’ training. In addition to formal training in icebreaking, most of the Frost’s bridge crew members also had many years’ experience on commercial ships, while a few had worked on land. However, shipping companies have relaxed competence requirements as part of efforts to expand the labour supply and increase workforce flexibility within an increasingly competitive market. Combined with icebreaking’s dependence on weather, the inherently adaptive and constantly shifting character of the work becomes apparent.

In this context, tracing the socio-cultural interactions among Frost’s crew reveals two experiential fields that shape the everyday practices of maritime infrastructure-making on board: (1) jokes about job performance and endurance, and (2) tropes about embodied and collective aspects of seafaring and its contradictions. Throughout these fields, a masculine microculture of demanding labour performed by skilful and hardy men emerges as foundational in organizing and shaping nautical practice and lived experiences onboard. At the same time, the crew’s embodied competences and cultural meanings are intertwined with their identity as sailors, freedom as that identity’s foundational value, and the broader capitalist infrastructures of maritime trade. After analysing the two fields in the opening sections below, the third section situates these findings within the broader context of maritime trade infrastructure and the austerity pressures currently affecting it.

Producing skilful and enduring masculinities through joking

The icebreaker is formally in charge of ensuring navigation safety in difficult icy conditions. Yet, as it is virtually impossible to learn icebreaking at school, and the company has started hiring seamen with no experience in icebreaking, many bridge crew members now arrive onboard with limited familiarity with icebreaking while facing the job’s considerable cognitive and physical demands. Consequently, crew members must increasingly learn their duties on the job and rely on more experienced crew members for support and supervision.

Within this context of in situ ‘enskilment’ (Pálsson, 1994) – as practical understanding and embodied ways of knowing – the captain’s leadership becomes crucial. Although Frost’s work adheres to formal regulations and procedures, in practice the captain relies less on straightforward implementation and more the ‘ability to deal with uncertainty and uniqueness, instability and conflict’ (Thorlindsson, 1994, p. 330). Dealing with uncertainty and managing the crew’s stress is not the captain’s responsibility alone. Through their own efforts to cope with the demands of icebreaking, individual crew members also participate in these socio-cultural configurations. Consequently, the crew collectively reinforces and reproduces a sense of togetherness, largely enacted through the masculine ideals embedded in these practices. An important medium in this social navigation is humour. Onboard Frost, humour had three interrelated aspects.

First, joking unfolds in the very moments of icebreaking and assisting other ships. These situations demand absolute concentration, sensitivity to the ice’s character and movement, awareness of the assisted ship’s speed and steering, and constant, intense communication among the icebreaker crew and with the assisted vessel. The captain oversees all operations he deems particularly challenging, since he is otherwise not continuously present on the bridge. ¹ However, this supervision did not occur from a distance but through ongoing communicative engagement.

In the instance below, Otto, a steering officer, calls the captain for decision support after observing on the radar a large body of ice approaching a cargo ship at high speed. Otto is uncertain of whether it is safe to go and assist the ship as it is extremely close to the moving ice. The captain assesses the situation and, with a touch of humour, praises the officer for exercising caution:

The captain arrives on the bridge, and Otto reports to him the latest movements of the ice. While looking at the radar, the captain utters, ‘all the biggest ice is over there’. The men discuss the ship they’re going to assist, and the captain calls the ship.

He then returns to talk to Otto and the navigator Heikki: ‘we won’t assist it. There’s no sense going into such consolidated pack ice. Let’s see if the ship gets stuck. If the ice is moving too fast, we’ll just wait until nature gives in a little.’

Otto calls the engineers downstairs and asks them to start the engines. The captain laughs: ‘I was just standing out on the terrace, enjoying the sun, and then I had to come here, Otto! No, really, you did very well. Always think of safety first. Moving ice is always a risk factor.’

Heikki calls the VTS to report that Frost is on the move. (Excerpt 2, Fieldnotes)

The captain compliments the officer through a lightly ‘paternalist’ joke (Zijderveld, 1968, p. 297), emphasizing the fact that the officer could not make the decision independently but called for the captain for support, pulling him away from ‘enjoying the sun’. The captain then makes an assertive analysis of what needs to be done – a typical practice during operations that call for him to make the final decision.

This facet of humour as ‘joking-down’ was common among the bridge crew and was always met with either laughter or silence. Analytically, it carries a double meaning. On one hand, the captain demonstrates what Zijderveld (1968) terms ‘his “democratic spirit” by bridging . . . momentarily . . . the gap between top and lower echelons on the social ladder’ and providing ‘his subordinates with a feeling of “belonging to the family”’ (p. 297). At the same time, however, a subordinate is reminded of his place within the icebreaker’s hierarchy. Accordingly, joking serves not only to enforce togetherness but also to organize and regulate the social structure on board (Kehily & Nayak, 1997). The following examples demonstrate how the interplay of humour and social hierarchy was also integral to processes of enskilment.

The towing situation analysed below is the opposite of the one above. The captain tells Mika, the steering officer, that he misjudged the danger involved in a towing operation and could have caused an accident. Although the captain expresses disapproval, he uses humour to restore a positive atmosphere and to indirectly help Mika stay calm:

Captain [noticing an ice knife in the assisted ship’s bow]: ‘Oh, that will cause damage. I would not tow a ship that has a knife like that. When the knife hits the side of our ship, we will get damaged. That is reason enough not to tow the ship’; [in a considerably softer tone] ‘when the ice gets thicker, take it easy’.

Mika: ‘What did you say is reason enough?’

Captain [explaining]: ‘Everything will go wrong if the ship does not stay far enough from us. You could have considered trimming it. If the knife hits us, our side opens. It’s a small ice knife but it makes a big mess.’

The captain then lightens the atmosphere by making joking remarks about a deckhand’s loud voice. Everybody on the bridge, including Mika, laughs. (Excerpt 3, Fieldnotes)

The captain makes it clear to Mika that he has misjudged the level of danger. Both the captain and Mika are visibly tense, ² concentrating on the towing operation while remaining acutely aware of the risks. After making his point, the captain jokes to shift the framing and to maintain calm. The shared humour carries an element of masculine onboard camaraderie: the deckhand, a man, did indeed have a loud, low-pitched voice. Laughing together in the demanding context of icebreaking work helped channel stress and served as a form of social bonding by smoothening encounters and creating togetherness. Yet, as the men laughed at a marker of maleness – a loud voice – the episode also functioned as a subtle ‘disciplinary technique’ (Kehily & Nayak, 1997, p. 84) for sustaining the norm of robust sailor masculinity.

During another difficult operation, joking worked to help Ville, a navigating officer, to save face – preserving a similar, masculinely assertive and independent self-presentation in front of the crew (Collinson, 1988, p. 191) – and thereby reinforced social cohesion among the men. The bridge crew discussed the appropriate course of action during a towing operation. After completing icebreaking for and escorting Arctica, a ship that soon after became stuck in ice and again needed help, Ville had to decide with Otto whether to tow the vessel. After the men decided to go for the towing, the captain expressed approval of Ville’s earlier decision to escort Arctica rather than towing it, despite the presence of heavy, slushy ice – a circumstance that clearly suggested that the escort operation had little chance of success. A deckhand, Matti, with no prior experience of steering, arrived to help. ³

Frost is towing Arctica. Otto instructs the deckhand on steering.

Captain: We would have had to tow it in any case.

Otto [jokingly]: So it was good that it got stuck now [bridge crew laughs].

Captain [smiling]: I think Ville intentionally got it stuck.

Ville [smiling]: Well yeah, I must admit that now.

Otto instructs Arctica to come closer and continues to guide Matti in steering.

Otto: Go straight into the glacier, otherwise we will jump off the glacier . . . just drive straight like this.

Matti: Straight like this.

Otto [laughing]: Through the thickest glacier. (Excerpt 4, Fieldnotes)

Here, Otto and the captain joke about Ville’s misjudgement of the situation, saying that Ville knew very well what he was doing while the crew knew that was not true. Ville takes part in the joke by ‘admitting’ that he intentionally got the ship stuck. Pretending to know the appropriate course of action contributed to constructing a stereotypical image of the masculine self as being in charge; this served as a collective mode of encouragement among the sailors learning real-time decision-making. As the towing continued, Otto laughed a great deal while being visibly concerned and continually giving instructions to the inexperienced deckhand to ensure that he stayed on course. The laughter helped channel the stress of overseeing Matti’s inexperienced performance.

In all the above instances, the captain’s supportive role in officers’ successes and failures readily became apparent. He encouraged them through joking, and these jokes – typically playing on expertise and ideals of seafaring masculinity – and the captain’s role were subsequently reflected further down the hierarchy, such as in interactions between the navigating officer and the deckhand. During operations, joking served to relieve stress and smooth social interactions, offering ‘social sublimation of potential conflicts’ (Zijderveld, 1968, p. 305). While reinforcing camaraderie and togetherness, shared joking also regulated the onboard social hierarchy and norms of sailors’ masculinity, which was particularly evident in the second tenet of onboard humour.

Alongside operational joking, humour appeared prominently in conversations about the physically taxing work environment. The shared banter in these instances reflected working-class masculinity and reinforced the robust sailor identity. This became evident when crew members discussed the most significant disturbance to life and work on icebreaking: the forceful shaking of the entire ship when breaking ice. In examining these jokes, it is important to note that they all occurred during conversations with the first author and were offered by the officers to illustrate their relationship to work. Other officers were also often present during these discussions.

In one instance, while Frost was cutting through the ice, the captain explained to the first author the broader framework influencing how the vessel’s shaking impacts the crew, before turning the situation itself into a joke:

Captain: There exist no threshold values or regulations regarding a maximum level of shaking. There are recommendations for maximum allowable noise but not for shaking. The shaking can be like this shaking now, for the entire ten-day work shift. The better the crew recovers from work during a shift, the better it recovers during its ten days off. The company tries to support the recovery by providing us a gym, books, videos, and a recreational room.

But in practice, the men don’t readily complain about their health issues even to our occupational healthcare . . . it’s important to be motivated to work . . . you know the crew here gets shorter due to the shaking [laughs]. Otto is short because of all the shaking he’s had to endure onboard. (Excerpt 5, Fieldnotes)

It is noteworthy that the captain tended to understate the real challenging effects of the vessel’s shaking: working onboard during such forceful shaking is physically demanding, even exhausting; walking between locations and handling tools and machinery becomes more difficult, and sleep is nearly impossible. Yet, what the captain said was that the crew become shorter while they generally do not seek a physician to manage health issues – in other words, they persist. The valorization of marine endurance reinforced the norm of robust onboard masculinity.

In another instance, Mika, a steering officer, jokingly talked about his experiences: ‘sometimes we cut the ice wall so hard that the shaking makes the ceiling panels fall’, and ‘officers have to duck out from their way’. Correspondingly, mechanics and bridge officers joked on several occasions with the first author about how well everyone had slept the night before, whereas in reality no one had slept a wink due to the shaking. There is a degree of submission in this banter, suggesting that the men must surrender to and endure the falling ceiling panels and other physical stressors such as sleepless nights and ‘becoming shorter’. The humour centred on endurance functions as a medium that helps the crew cope with the inevitability. Similar to the joking during operations, it also embodies and enacts the normative ideals of masculine perseverance in challenging circumstances.

The third facet of humour lay in joking among the bridge crew, which upheld a sense of autonomy and superiority through ‘us-and-them’ distinctions from other icebreaker companies (Collinson, 1988, p. 186). During fieldwork, the crew regarded their skills much superior to those of other Finnish and Swedish icebreaker operators working in the Baltic Sea. The bridge officers on several occasions laughed at the poor performance of the towing ships of another Finnish company and joked about the company’s icebreakers. A colloquial comparison involving male bragging made by a mechanical engineer provides an illustrative example: ‘Their operations are minor. Our ships are all grade three or four beer [Finnish beer with higher alcohol content] and theirs is grade one beer [the lowest alcohol content].’

Relatedly, two bridge officers mocked the performance of Swedish icebreaker crews by invoking a Finnish trope of Sweden’s work culture, highlighting a very long processes of building consensus among teams. The officers reflected with irony that by the time the icebreaker crew reached a decision, the ship’s needs had often already changed entirely. The humorous distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’ expressed pride and a sense of expert superiority. These sentiments were also reflected on a larger scale. In an interview, the captain and Frost’s two steering officers discussed their nautical skills in what they described as ‘the most challenging, difficult, and stressful mode of seafaring’ (Otto) – one that, as the captain put it, ‘has a meaning’, is ‘significant for society’, and ‘keeps commerce going’ (Mika). These experiences related also specifically to the company’s de facto leadership role in coordinating Finnish maritime traffic and to Frost being the leading coordinator icebreaker in that part of the Gulf of Bothnia.

Skilled and robust masculinities were enacted through joking, while the societally significant maritime infrastructure was simultaneously sustained through male performance and endurance. Yet instead of being only a functional add-on to Frost’s materially grounded infrastructure-making operations, such as stress relief, humour also performed and reaffirmed the particular normality of seamanship. Accordingly, Kehily and Nayak’s (1997, p. 84) Foucault-inspired observation that ‘bodies are trained, indeed schooled . . . through the humorous techniques’ also highlights the shaping of the seamen onboard Frost: joking about the toughness of the work both implied and instilled the norm of nautical toughness. This norm of masculinity appeared to be deeply intertwined with operating in demanding conditions; the robust crew, their skilful manoeuvring and socio-cultural forms such as manly joking together constitute ‘the larger community of practice to which they all belong’ (Pálsson, 1994, p. 911). This interwovenness materialized in the crew’s embodied engagement with both their vessel and the environment around it.

Embodied seafaring amid shifting maritime logistics

Deeply connected to the challenge of balancing demanding tasks with multiple crew members who had limited icebreaking experience, an underlying tension among the crew members became apparent. This tension stemmed from the men’s sense of being undervalued by the icebreaker company and was especially pronounced among the most experienced men, though it was also present among those with only a few years on the job. Consequently, at the heart of this experiential field lay a conflict between the identity of the autonomous expert and the pressure to conform to company-imposed, economy-driven performance requirements.

The autonomy emerged through the crew’s deep experience with and commitment to their vessel – an ethos in which the ship is, in an important sense, ‘theirs’. In a discussion with the first author about onboard safety, a senior mechanic, Esa, emphasized this connection:

You take care of the ship with the expectation that you’ll be returning to work on the same ship [refers to breaks and the summer season]. So, there’s a certain commitment to our ship. It stems from a long time of working this way.

However, according to him, the situation has been

. . . changing because crews have begun to be rotated between ships. It began during our previous leadership. The idea with the rotation is for the crew to gain experience also from other, different icebreakers, which is a good thing. But there’s a gap in understanding between the office and the ships. Specifically, the office management doesn’t understand what icebreaking is, and they make decisions with narrow shoulders [in contrast to the need for broad shoulders].

First author: Are narrow shoulders more a result of prioritizing the economic aspect or is that about not understanding?

Esa: Both. The leadership almost never visits to get to know the ships . . . there’s a certain indifference that didn’t use to exist. (Excerpt 6, Fieldnotes)

Martti, another senior mechanic, talked with the first author about onboard risk management in a similar vein:

One of the risks is that we aren’t given sufficient time to maintain the ships. We must, for example, wash the bilges in the engine room. In a way, we’re being forced into a situation where we have to choose what we leave undone. It’s been like this for years. Another risk is the management, their lack of expertise. Safety is not their area of knowledge, so the objective of the folders [refers to written safety protocol that the crew is obliged to study] is to shift the responsibility to us. (Excerpt 7, Fieldnotes)

For the mechanics, the company’s austerity measures – imposed from afar – eroded the long-standing bond between vessels and crews and, in their view, threatened operational safety. However, the transition towards a more flexible workforce and lower competence requirements placed the most significant pressure on those in leadership positions and other senior crew members.

Frost’s leaders were constantly required to choose the least harmful option among multiple difficult alternatives to ensure that work was completed as safely as possible. The captain highlighted this tension in an interview:

Captain: Now anyone from a maritime school can operate a vessel, anyone with a mate’s qualification can steer. That makes it easier for [the company] to hire crew, and the workforce has become more mobile. [The company] has actively pushed for this legislative change. It all starts from there. In here, it’s also about money.

First author: More pressure on you?

Captain: A lot. Now it’s up to the captain to decide who’s fit to operate. Right after the change, greener people started to come in from all directions. Before, you needed a captain’s qualification to become a mate. Now, it’s enough to have just started maritime captain training, even if it’s unfinished. There are cases where the mate has little or no experience at all. There really should always be a qualified captain on board.

First author: So, the responsibility for ensuring the accumulation of experience falls on the more experienced crew?

Captain: Yes. The enormous responsibility that’s now on the captain’s shoulders can cause problems. (Excerpt 8, Interviews)

Because seafaring is learned largely through on-the-job experience and icebreakers vary considerably, the newer crew members depend on experienced colleagues for hands-on guidance. In this context, policies promoting workforce flexibility and reduced competence thresholds both intensify the burden on senior crew members and jeopardize operational safety.

Meanwhile, the purported cost savings remain uncertain, as the bridge officer Heikki reflects:

On each ship you work on, you need to learn its buttons [refers to navigation and communication technologies]. Seasonal workers mean there’s more that needs to be taught. Here they save so much that it gets expensive. (Excerpt 9, Fieldnotes)

Learning the ship’s buttons was primarily tied to Frost’s icebreaking operations, which in turn required a full understanding of both the assisted ships and the conditions that shaped these operations. Consequently, the company’s recent adjustments to enhance workforce circularity risk undermining the crew’s icebreaking expertise, grounded in what Thorlindsson (1994, p. 341) terms ‘mundane excellence’. This excellence aboard Frost arose from a profound connection not only between the men and their vessel but also with the surrounding maritime environment.

Indeed, much of the bridge crew’s conversation revolved around that wintry context. In their discussions of changing weather patterns and the character and movement of the ice, the more experienced crew members foregrounded forms of expertise cultivated through a sensory relationship. Otto, the most experienced bridge officer after the captain, described noticing ‘it under my feet when it’s time to stop the assistance and let a cargo ship proceed on its own. . . . I feel how the ice feels.’ Otto also discussed the need for bridge officers to hear the surrounding environment and said that some cargo ships have microphones that bring in sounds from the outside (Fieldnotes). Similarly, the captain and the chief mechanic both said that in the 1970s, icebreaker bridges were open, and officers could hear their environment. According to the captain, this made sense, as it allowed the officers to grasp the situation more quickly and effectively.

Observed in situ, Frost’s officers’ nautical expertise manifested as practical understanding and embodied ways of knowing. Within this enskilment, or ‘embodied symbiosis’ (Mellström, 2004, p. 368), the skilled manoeuvring of the vessel and attentive engagement with the surrounding maritime environment appeared inseparable. Similarly to Pálsson’s (1994) Icelandic fishermen, the ‘skilful practitioners’ on the Frost’s bridge ‘assimilate technology as a part of’ their own bodies (p. 910). Conversely, the vessel and its machinery also function as ‘techniques to extend the body and its senses’ (McCall Howard, 2017, p. 89). Alongside its technical-material aspects, this symbiotic connection also carried a distinctly masculine dimension of meaning.

During the discussions about the vessel and sensing the icy environment, explicitly masculine displays were less evident, however, than in the joking during icebreaking operations or the banter surrounding having to endure harsh conditions. Masculine meanings thus surfaced in more muted forms, such as an undertone rendering ‘the machine’ – the vessel – ‘a symbiotic extension of . . . the man’ (Mellström, 2004, p. 379). In one instance, however, Otto drew on a markedly sexist metaphor, casting the ship as an extension of his own body when describing its encounter with the ice. One evening, towards the end of his work shift, he commented to Ville about the hole that Otto had cut in ice for Frost to remain in place for the night. He called the hole (potero, a Finnish military word for foxhole) a whore (horo in Finnish slang). Otto meant that the hole was too big and loose for the icebreaker to remain in place, using an expression making the ship an extension of the male body. Later, he said that he knew this slang was common also among Finnish machinists and carpenters.

Rather than being articulated through overtly sexist metaphors or chauvinistic language, the masculine undertone appeared also in the crew’s joyful humour. In addition to the joking and banter described above, the crew’s laughter during operations revealed the shared satisfaction they derived from skilfully interacting with the ship and its machinery. This humour-infused connection to their icebreaker resonates with Collinson’s (1988) observation of ‘masculine pride in their manual . . . skills and practical experience’ (p. 190) and Mellström’s (2004) account of men’s enjoyment in mastering technology. Yet aboard Frost, joy went beyond mere technical mastery of the vessel’s machinery.

It was common for senior officers to guide others (including the first author) in assessing and naming different types of ice. Those were not merely technical acts – they also conveyed a genuine delight in experiencing the ice’s beauty. The men engaged in enthusiastic conversations about the visual nuances of the surrounding ice formations, referring to them as ‘cobblestone’ or ‘Marianne candy’ (a traditional Finnish hard white mint-chocolate candy dating back to the 1940s). Consequently, the bridge officers’ ties to both their ship and the icy environment were shaped not only by masculine mastery and control but also by intimate, multifaceted cultural meanings.

The officers’ critical reflections on the company’s recent staffing policy changes revealed deeper meanings of seafaring. Dissolving the connections between the crew, the vessel and the wintry offshore environment threatened not only to compromise safety and potentially increase costs but also to undermine independence and the profound joy of sailing. The captain and a steering officer reflected on these aspects during an onboard conversation:

Captain [smiling]: Being at sea has always meant knowing that when the mooring ropes have been cast off, I feel that NOW we are on our own – disconnected from land.

First author: Tell me more about this feeling.

Mika: It is the certainty of managing on our own.

Captain: And when we go back to land, the change is clear. (Excerpt 10, Fieldnotes)

Later, in an interview, the captain proudly reiterated that ‘when the mooring ropes are untied, we are on our own’.

The men conveyed a sense of joy and pride in moving independently across the icy seas. The trope of the happy offshore sailor was further grounded in a deeper seafaring value: a distinctive freedom experienced in nature, removed from land-based modalities of control. Experiencing this freedom was made possible by the crew’s skilful and seamless manoeuvring, in which the captain noted that ‘everybody’s actions count’. As a result, liberty – especially as felt against the backdrop of land-based restrictions – emerged as both an overarching goal and a source of meaning for the skilled and steadfast sailors dedicated to their tasks and vessels.

Contradictions of seamanship in the grip of global trade capitalism

Based on our ethnographic analysis, the icebreaking work on Frost emerged as hard labour performed by hardy men. The success of this effort rested on an embodied entanglement of skilfully manoeuvring the vessel and sensing the surrounding maritime environment. Moreover, shared joking and banter not only eased the stress inherent in the operations but also reinforced camaraderie and togetherness, while instilling the norm of robust sailor masculinity. We conclude the analytical section by outlining three interrelated contradictions that reveal the contingent relationship between this masculine microculture onboard the ship and the maritime infrastructure to which it is connected.

First, the icebreaking company plays an intermediary role between seamanship and the trade infrastructure. On one hand, it serves as an important point of identification for the crew, one of the key loci of ‘us’: the vessels of Frost’s company are regarded as superior to those of other companies, and although the Frost’s company’s tasks are portrayed as more demanding, they are executed with greater skill. On the other hand, the company’s prioritization of flexibility over situated skill undermines one key factor of masculine identity, the autonomous expert, by dissolving the embodied triad of the sailor, his vessel and the icy environment.

Second, aboard Frost, that trade infrastructure appeared ambiguous, intertwined with seafaring meanings that go beyond the triad. One important aspect of the crew’s work was its broader societal significance: diligence on board was essential for keeping ‘commerce going’ (Mika). In other words, the demanding icebreaking work was portrayed as meaningful because it was central to the Finnish economy, operating within the broader dynamics of global capitalist trade. At the same time, however, the networked maritime infrastructure channels modalities of this very capitalism, such as economic intensification of maritime logistics and the new managerial doctrines reflected in the Frost’s company’s efficiency objectives and austerity policies. Global capitalism inevitably shapes the social life and daily routines of icebreaking, but this influence is neither unidirectional nor straightforward.

Because the triad of crew, vessel and maritime environment enabled smooth and safe – and thus independent – sailing, the intensifying pressures of international trade reshaped not only the crew members’ daily routines but also the foundational values underpinning their masculine seafaring. The third and final tension concerns the relationship of these values to global trade capitalism. Eventually, two cultural layers emerged that shape work onboard and the meanings attached to it: the masculine microculture connected to the tasks at hand and a broader culture of seafaring. The onboard microculture appeared not entirely self-sufficient and grounded in values of the broader seafaring culture. Consequently, the key entanglement of seamanship highlighted above – independence and skill – was connected to a sense of freedom experienced offshore, removed from land-based modalities of control.

For the icebreaking officers, safe navigation expressed their ability to operate autonomously offshore, which in turn symbolized independence and freedom from land – central tenets of the seafaring culture and identity. The masculine microculture on Frost was therefore essential not just for managing icebreaking operations but also for sustaining the broader nautical ethos, where safe sailing enabled autonomy and freedom. To be a sailor is therefore to work in seamless cooperation with other skilled and steadfast crew members devoted to their tasks and vessels and, through this cooperation, to experience a sense of freedom at sea. We contend that the embeddedness of the crew’s icebreaking work within these broader cultural meanings renders the connection between global capitalist trade and hands-on infrastructure-making aboard Frost conditional rather than deterministic.

Discussion and conclusion

Informal workplace microcultures are a sociologically significant and enduring topic in their own right (e.g. Roy, 1959). While rich with microcultural nuances, the demanding work of Frost’s crew plays a crucial role in securing maritime trade during the icy season in the Gulf of Bothnia. Thus, we examined the onboard work in relation to maritime infrastructure, a crucial component of contemporary Nordic international trade. Based on our ethnographic analysis, the icebreaking work and infrastructure are connected contingently: the work onboard and its microculture do not directly and functionally generate the trade infrastructure, nor is this work-oriented seamanship culture wholly subsumed by the broader capitalistic structure.

In contrast to many others navigating seas and rivers – Fajardo’s Filipino sailors in the Pacific, Bear’s (2015) boatmen and other workers along the Hooghly River and McCall Howard’s (2017) North Sea fishers, for instance – Frost’s bridge officers are not underdogs in the complex maritime infrastructural network. They are not compelled to continually navigate or resist forces of global capitalism beyond their control (McCall Howard, 2017), nor do they work within an ‘austerity timespace’ characterized by persistent neglect and deficit (Bear, 2015, p. 130). Rather, Frost’s officers enjoy comparatively extensive agency, and their everyday lives are more securely supported. Therefore, austerity policies do not affect the officers’ daily work in the ways depicted in those ethnographies – for instance, by leading to forced risk-taking internalized as heroic character traits, to poor maintenance of vessels and machinery under competitive pressures, or to hazardous fatigue that compromises safe sailing. Yet these effects of austerity were still present aboard Frost – not as immediate directives, but as emerging risks that current policies favouring workforce flexibility and reduced competence requirements are on the verge of bringing into reality. Alongside these elements, certain factors limiting their implementation also became apparent during our ethnographic enquiry.

Observed in situ aboard Frost, the crew’s everyday work and orientation both enact and draw upon a masculine microculture of demanding labour performed by skilful and hardy men. Humour played a key role in constructing their seamanship: during demanding operations, shared laughter relieved stress and strengthened a sense of togetherness, but joking also regulated the onboard social hierarchy. Moreover, banter about the rigours of the work affirmed the toughness of the seamen themselves, manifesting the norm of robust onboard masculinity. Beyond humour, masculinities were also expressed and enacted through an embodied entanglement of skill – both in manoeuvring the vessel and in sensing the surrounding icy environment – and further reinforced by tropes of a superior, more competent ‘us’ with a ‘them’ operating lower-grade vessels with lesser skill.

The masculine onboard microculture is not self-standing, however; it is linked to the broader maritime infrastructure without directly producing it or being fully absorbed by it. Consequently, and in slight contrast to Fajardo’s (2011) emphasis on embodied, performed sailor masculinities as essential for the functioning of ships – and thus for the smooth operation of global trade – the relationship between the masculine microculture of icebreaker seamanship and the capitalist trade infrastructure appeared contingent. Central to this contingency, we argue, is that the microculture is anchored in structural factors extending beyond masculine norms and practices that might otherwise align seamlessly with the key instrumental values of contemporary austerity capitalism.

Heroic mastery, skilful control and courageous endurance at sea intersect with economic efficiency, intensification and competition. Alongside these, however, the masculine microculture aboard Frost also encompassed subtler meanings of icebreaking, including the appreciation of the icy environment’s beauty and the joy of being offshore, both connected to the deeply rooted, historical seafaring value of experiencing freedom (Gilje, 2004). Freedom and nature, romantic idealism and masculine toughness, have been historically entangled in Nordic seafaring. Sailors on sailing ships were imagined as heroic and robust figures who were at once free and at the mercy of nature – adventurous yet perpetually exposed to danger (Karjalainen, 2007; Rosenström, 1996). In current seafaring practice, the experience of joy, aesthetics and freedom is likewise enabled through masculine traits, and these are further compatible with the instrumental values of capitalism – such as vessel mastery and skilful, safe manoeuvring. Yet these experiences are also valued as ends in themselves; they are not reducible to economically grounded aims but constitute a different register of goods altogether.

Aware of the privileged position of Frost’s officers in the global context, we conclude, in an echo of Tsing’s (2015) multi-sited matsutake ethnography, that capitalistic infrastructures should be understood not as abstract, self-sustaining systems that merely circulate and impose specific logics of control, but as patchy assemblages of heterogeneous encounters and enclaves. The smooth circulation of maritime trade – like the mushroom commodity chain – is linked not only to the quasi-functional sustaining work performed on icebreakers but also to the shared microcultures that both shape this work and connect it to broader cultural structures, including the seafarers’ pursuit of freedom. Consequently, trade infrastructure and seafaring microcultures are connected, yet this connection is neither strictly functional nor fully controllable – it is porous. In this light, the everyday life onboard Frost is ‘simultaneously inside and outside of capitalism’ (Tsing, 2015, p. 63); masculine meanings of seafaring are entangled with capitalist flows but do so in non-linear and contingent ways as these flows circulate through the uneven ecologies of global trade.