Chaplaincy and Seafarers Faith at Work

This book explores the faith, work, and lives of port chaplains and seafarers. It draws on archive materials, fieldwork in ports and on cargo ships, and interviews with chaplains in the UK and overseas. The volume presents a detailed picture of seafarers' attitudes to working in mixed faith crews, their understandings of their own faith and its role and negotiation in a life at sea, and their needs with regard to faith and more general welfare support. In addition, it describes the daily life and work of port chaplains, how they understand their roles in relation to their own faith, and how they manage their work in a multi-faith environment. In producing this rich account, the perspectives of relevant stakeholders and the historical underpinnings of port chaplaincy have also been considered, alongside the ways in which port chaplaincy compares with other forms of chaplaincy about which rather more has, hitherto, been known.

1 - The origins of British port chaplaincy
2 - The work of contemporary port chaplains
3 - The motivations and aspirations of port chaplains and volunteers
4 - The negotiation of differences in faith on board cargo vessels
5 - The significance of faith and support services for seafarers at sea
6 - Port chaplaincy and the wider community
7 - Practical ecumenical cooperation amongst organizations providing port chaplaincy
8 - Port chaplaincy: what makes it distinctive?

Helen Sampson is a Professor at the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. She is the Director of the Seafarers International Research Centre. Nelson Turgo is a Research Associate at the Seafarers International Research Centre in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. Wendy Cadge is Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanistic Social Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Brandeis University. Sophie Gilliat-Ray is Professor of Religious & Theological Studies at Cardiff University, and the Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK.