Call for papers - Maritime Histories from the Margins

Posted: Wednesday 29th April 2026

Event date: 11-12 November 2026

Location:  National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

Organisers: RMG & CPCMC

 

Maritime Histories from the Margins: People, Places, and Practices, 1500 - Present

The National Maritime Museum (Royal Museums Greenwich) and the Centre for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures, University of Portsmouth invite proposals for papers, panels, posters and practice-based or creative presentations for a two-day interdisciplinary conference exploring marginalised histories in maritime contexts from c.1500 to the present day. 

Maritime history has long been shaped by narratives centred on political, military, and economic power. Yet the oceans have always been populated and impacted by maritime communities that were historically marginalised, or people whose maritime lives and labour remain overlooked or underrepresented in archives, collections, and scholarship. This interdisciplinary conference aims to bring those histories to the forefront: the workers, makers, families, travellers, navigators, communities, and knowledge-keepers who have lived and worked at the edges of visibility within maritime histories.   

Conference themes include, but are not limited to:

1. Labour and working lives
2. Gender and sexuality at sea
3. Indigenous and non-Western knowledges in maritime contexts
4. Everyday and domestic maritime worlds
5. Health, sickness and the body
6. Oceans and environments
7. Museums and research: practice, methodologies and interpretation

Full details and how to submit can be found on the webpage:

Call for Papers | Maritime Histories from the Margins: People, Places, and Practices, 1500–Present

Deadline for submissions: 15 June.

Enquiries: research@rmg.co.uk

 

Conference themes 

Proposals may address, but are not limited to, the following themes: 

1. Labour and working lives 

• Dockyard, shipyard and maritime industrial labour, including marginalised or undocumented workers  
• Crew diversity; racialised global crews 
• Working conditions, pay, discipline, mutiny, and industrial disputes 
• Maritime neighbourhoods 

2. Gender and sexuality at sea 

• Women's maritime labour: ship and shore; formal and informal 
• Domestic work; caregiving roles e.g. ayahs and amahs or other domestic servants travelling by sea 
• Queer histories and identities; queer methodologies; and LGBTQ+ maritime experiences 
• Conceptions of masculinity and femininity among seafarers 

3. Indigenous and non‑Western knowledges in maritime contexts 

• Indigenous and non-Western cartography and navigation 
• Cultural encounters in early modern and colonial settings 
• Object histories which reveal cross‑cultural exchange 

4. Everyday and domestic maritime worlds  

• Craft, making, textile production, and material culture 
• Food, victualling, hunger, alcohol, celebration, cultural food practices 
• Hobbies, crafts, storytelling, and shipboard culture including music and maritime folklore 
• The methodological challenge of representing the ‘mundane’ and domestic as critical historical practice 

5. Health, sickness and the body 

• Injury, disease, medical practice, remedies, and shipboard healthcare 
• Living and environmental conditions, shaping bodily experience (including experience of war at sea) 

6. Oceans and environments  

• Relationships between marginalised or vulnerable communities and oceanic environments (from storms, flooding, shipwrecks to wildlife and environment) 
• Environmental change, ecological knowledge, and ocean exploitation (e.g. whaling, fishing) and pollution  

7. Museums and research: practice, methodologies and interpretation 

• Curating in the margins: effective methodologies for recovering marginalised or hidden voices, including collecting and curating objects, manuscripts and oral histories 
• Researching in the margins: methodologies such as reading against the grain or recording intangible heritage and lived environmental experience 
• Decolonial and inclusive approaches to maritime collections and histories, including decolonial cartographic approaches 
• Working effectively with communities including both contemporary marginalised maritime communities, or descent communities of underrepresented groups within maritime histories. 
• Use of practice‑based research to foreground inclusive maritime histories. 
• NB. The organisaers encourage illustrative case studies from museums.