Ports, infrastructure, and logistics

Vinzenz Bäumer Escobar

Chapter 1 in Elgar Encyclopedia of Economic Anthropology, 2025, pp 253-257 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This entry examines the relation between ports, infrastructure, and logistics within the context of global capitalism. Focusing on the Port of Rotterdam, I highlight how ports, once integral to urban centers, have now shifted towards remote locations due to burgeoning global trade demands and have been transformed into increasingly automated and de-peopled spaces. Countering the self-presentation of ports, however, this paper illuminates the often-overlooked labor that underpins global supply chains. Based on fieldwork in the Port of Rotterdam among manual twist lock handlers, this paper argues that technologically advanced port operations are continually reproduced through the marginalization of labor in port spaces. In this way, this paper establishes a dialogue between critical logistics studies and the anthropology of infrastructure and shows the importance of grounding the study of ports in concrete socio-cultural histories, material infrastructures, and the politics of labor.

Keywords: Ports; Labor; Logistics; Infrastructure; Automation; Rotterdam (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035312566
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