Bloomberg reports that Rolls-Royce Holdings is developing unmanned drone ships.
(Source: Rolls-Royce Holdings)
11 Million cigarettes wash up on Devonshire coast
The container ship Svendborg Maersk was battered by hurricane winds as it crossed the northern stretch of the Bay of Biscay on February 14th. Battling 30-foot waves and working through winds of 60 knots the ship arrived only to find that a large chunk of her cargo had been swept overboard. The ship was originally heading from Rotterdam to Sri Lanka.
The shipping giant initially reported that only 70 containers had been lost in the storms. However, last Wednesday this number skyrocketed to 517 – the largest recorded loss of containers overboard in a single incident. Countless more are supposed to have been damaged when six of the bays tilted over.
Maersk have suggested that almost 85 percent of the containers were empty, with the rest containing mostly dry goods and frozen meats. They also reinforced the fact that none of the containers were carrying harmful substances and that many had sunk…
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A world map of submarine cables
Interesting world map of submarine cables – can’t remember who alerted me to this, but thank you.
The Forgotten Space – Discussion with Sukhdev Sandhu & Phil Steinberg
Phil Steinberg (blog) and Sukhdev Sandhu recently discussed Allan Sekula’s and Noël Burch’s film The Forgotten Space at Nottingham Contemporary.
Phil has also written a review on The Forgotten Space and an obituary for Allan Sekula, who recently died.
Tuesday 18th June: SEA STORIES AND SEE STORIES
Passengerfilms – the car-crash shipwreck of geography and film – presents ‘Sea Stories and See Stories’ on Tuesday the 18th of June.
Filmmakers leverage the ocean as a venue for seeing the worlds in which we live, from those of our inner psyches to the circulatory rhythms of global political economy. But in the process is the ocean as a space of matter and affect truly explored…or is its erasure merely taken to a new level? Indeed, is it truly possible to tell a narrative about the ocean, or is a ‘sea story’ necessarily about seeing something else?
We’ll be grappling with these questions through screenings of two films:
The Forgotten Space (2010, 112 min) by Allan Sekula and Noël Burch, winner of the Special Orizzonti Jury Award (best feature-length film) at the 2010 Venice Biennale. An extension of Sekula’s 1996 photo-essay Fish Story, The Forgotten Space uncovers the hidden…
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Governmobility: The Powers of Mobility (2012)
Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt, Governmobility: The Powers of Mobility, Mobilities, 2012
Abstract
Mobility is often associated with flow and freedom; nonetheless, it is also about power and government. While mobility studies have shown how interpersonal social relations are increasingly supported by mobile technologies, it seems less clear how mobilities are involved in governing societies. Inspired by Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality and his 1978 lectures on security, territory and population, this article suggests that societies are increasingly governed through mobility, rather than there being government of mobility. If circulation has become a producer of, rather than an obstacle to, societies, then governmobility is a meaningful concept relating to how societies are ruled through connections. In conclusion, the article asks: what are the implications of governmobility for border studies, and more broadly, what are the powers of mobility studies?
New Paper: ‘Shipping Container Mobilities, Seamless Compatibility, and the Global Surface of Logistical Integration’
I have a paper in the new issue of Environment and Planning A. It’s part of the ‘What are Surfaces?’ special issue edited by Isla Forsyth, Hayden Lorimer, Pete Merriman and James Robinson. You can download their introduction here: http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=a4699
Call for Papers: International Relations, Capitalism and the Sea: The Historical Sociology of Oceans and Inner Seas
“Containing (Dis)order” – PhD thesis by Craig Martin
Craig Martin has completed his PhD thesis at Royal Holloway last year. His research focuses on a spatial parameter — “distributive space” — which he identifies as being central “for understanding the formations of late capitalist modernity”.
“Containing (Dis)order: A Cultural Geography of Distributive Space“ is a fascinating work on the logistical spaces, practices and rationales the world economy is built on and a significant, timely contribution to growing scholarship on the spatialities of logistics and capitalist commodity mobilities.
Full abstract of his thesis:
“This thesis focuses on the significance of distributive space for understanding capitalist forms of spatio-temporality. It argues that the distributive phase of commodity mobilities has remained a relatively under-represented aspect of social theory, especially in the context of cultural and social geography. The extant work that has focused on distribution tends to be confined to the areas of economic and transport geography. The thesis aims to address the importance of this space for understanding the formations of late capitalist modernity, particularly its role as a specific, but networked space between production and consumption.
Significantly the work addresses the ‘construction’ of this space by focussing on the substantive case study of containerisation. In doing so it engages with global commodity mobilities in the form of intermodal shipping containers, and their attendant logistical infrastructure. The research critically considers the spatial and temporal apparatuses that have been developed to organise and order the mobilities of the containers; including the design and development of the object itself, alongside a range of logistics and supply chain management strategies.
In theoretical terms an important influence on the research has been Michel Serres’ work on the interlacing of order and disorder. Given this, a simultaneous focus of the research deals with the immanent presence of disorder in these systemic environments; thus reflecting an intellectual engagement with theoretical work in the areas of turbulence, complexity theory, assemblage theory and Serres’ work on the parasite. Substantively this aspect of the research has been determined by considering the place of the accident within networks and systems, alongside the ‘tactical-logistics’ of smuggling practices.”
You can download his thesis here.
See also his new blog: designgeographies.wordpress.com/
Mobility and Politics – New Series
Mobility & Politics – a new thematic series, edited by Martin Geiger, Parvati Raghuram and William Walters.
MOBILITY & POLITICS A New Series from Palgrave Pivot
Series Editors: Martin GEIGER, Carleton University – Parvati RAGHURAM, Open University – William WALTERS, Carleton University
Human mobility, whatever its scale, is often controversial. Hence it carries with it the potential for politics. A core feature of mobility politics is the tension between the desire to maximize the social and economic benefits of migration, and pressures to restrict movement. Transnational communities, global instability, advances in transportation and communication, and concepts of ‘smart borders’ and ‘migration management’ are just a few of the phenomena transforming the landscape of migration today. The tension between openness and restriction raises important questions about how different types of policies and politics come to life and influence mobility. Mobility & Politics invites original, theoretically and empirically informed studies for academic and policy-oriented debates. Authors examine issues such as refugees and displacement, migration and citizenship, security and cross- border movements, (post-)colonialism and mobility, and transnational movements and cosmopolitics.
Mobility & Politics invites original, theoretically and empirically informed studies for academic and policy-oriented debates. Authors examine issues such as refugees and displacement, migration and citizenship, security and cross-border movements, (post-)colonialism and mobility, and transnational movements and cosmopolitics.
Submissions to Mobility & Politics are ideally between 25,000 and 50,000 words and will be published within 3 months after peer review and acceptance of the final manuscript. Authors interested in submitting a proposal are welcome to contact the series editors ( mpp.series@gmail.com) or Christina M Brian (c.brian@palgrave.com).
Global Advisory Board: Michael COLLYER, University of Sussex; Susan B. COUTIN, University of California, Irvine; Raúl DELGADO WISE, University of Zacatecas; Nicholas DE GENOVA, Goldsmiths, University of London; Eleonore KOFMAN, Middlesex University; Rey KOSLOWSKI, State University of New York; Loren B. LANDAU, Wits University; Sandro MEZZADRA, University of Bologna; Alison MOUNTZ, Wilfrid Laurier University; Brett NEILSON, University of Western Sydney; Antoine PÉCOUD, University Paris 13; Ranabir SAMADDAR, Calcutta Research Group; Nandita SHARMA, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Tesfaye TAFESSE, Addis Ababa University; Thanh-Dam TRUONG, Erasmus University
critical logistics 