Public talk w/ Charmaine Chua (University of California, Santa Barbara)
//March 20th, 2025
//5:30 PM
//GEM Lab, FB 630.15
//1250 rue Guy
The rise of the global logistics industry has profoundly impacted global workers' struggles by organizing goods movement through a politics of just-in-time circulation. Although scholars have often dubbed this phenomenon "the revolution in logistics," in this talk I argue that the so-called 'logistics revolution' is better understood as a counter-revolution. Tracing the historical conjuncture of the rise of logistics with the end of formal empire, I ask: What did the rise of logistics look like from the vantage of the decolonizing Global South? As anti-colonial leaders and trade unions in Southeast Asia pursued economic sovereignty during the “Third World’s” transition to independence, they nationalized industry, seized colonial property, and sought to build national shipping and industrial capacity. To contain this threat to private enterprise, US and UK shipping corporations, backed by their states, pursued the globalization of supply chain infrastructures. Focusing on a swathe of nationalizations of Dutch and British merchant, shipping, and plantation corporations in Indonesia from 1960-66, this talk examines how shipping containerization only became viable when it aided imperial containment strategy. As I argue, bringing the history of logistics into conversation with decolonizing workers' and nationalist struggles in Southeast Asia transforms our understanding of the logistics counter-revolution, positioning it as a reactionary political project that consolidated colonial power into new economic forms.
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