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

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.