ABSTRACT

Rotational shift work, long-distance commuting (LDC) and fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) have become increasingly prevalent forms of labour force provision in the resource extraction sector worldwide over the last few decades. This entails the workforce being on the move, with cycles of long shifts on site and extended periods back home. This article draws on ethnographic field work carried out in Arctic Russia and Subarctic Canada among petroleum and mining workers. It focusses on sociality processes in workers’ camps. I employ the notion of ‘meaningful sociality’ among camp inhabitants, which comes about when workers experience ‘rootedness along the way’. Both notions are basic elements of a long-term and satisfactory mobile and multilocal lifestyle. This article shows how the quality of rootedness, job satisfaction and wellbeing in such a labour setting are highly dependent on intersectional conditions of equality at interpersonal and politico-economic scales. Corporations are called upon to actively facilitate the necessary material and affective camp conditions to enable meaningful sociality and provide an equity-based atmosphere for people to become rooted along their way.

摘要

在过去的几十年中，轮换工作，长途通勤（LDC）和飞入/飞出（FIFO）已成为世界范围内资源开采行业中越来越普遍的劳动力提供形式。这需要劳动力的流动，现场需要长时间轮班，并需要较长时间回国。本文借鉴了北极俄罗斯和加拿大北极地区在石油和采矿工人中进行的人种学实地调查工作。它着重于工人营地的社会化过程。我在营地居民中采用了“有意义的社会性”的概念，这种概念是在工人经历“一路扎根”时产生的。这两个概念都是长期令人满意的移动和多本地生活方式的基本要素。本文说明了扎根的质量，在这样的劳动环境下，工作满意度和幸福感在很大程度上取决于人际和政治经济尺度上平等的相交条件。呼吁公司积极促进必要的物质和情感营地条件，以实现有意义的社交，并为人们提供一种以公平为基础的氛围，使他们扎根在自己的道路上。