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- Critical Logistics
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- Geographical Imaginations
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- Paleofutures – good tech stuff
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Category Archives: empire, imperialism & colonialism
Publication: The infrastructural power of the military
Drawing on extensive research in the archives of the US Army Corps of Engineers, this article again draws on my concomitant interest in militaries and infrastructure. “The infrastructural power of the military: The geoeconomic role of the US Army Corps … Continue reading
Publication: The Roads to Power: The Infrastructure of Counterinsurgency
It has been years since I posted here, but I am going to quickly provide some links to various publications related to the project here. The first is an article that conjugates my research on transport infrastructures with my counterinsurgency … Continue reading
Domination, Dispossession and Struggle in the Making of Infrastructure and Logistics
Last night (20 February), Deb Cowen (Toronto), Charmaine Chua (Oberlin), Rafeef Ziadah (SOAS) and I had a conversation about the politics of infrastructure and logistics. Here is the recording for the event:
The Multivalence of Infrastructures II – Rail
I am reading a fascinating article about colonial engineering. Canay Ozden’s fabulous “Pontifex Minimus” is about the British engineer of the Low (or old) Aswan Dam, and the article just drips with all sorts of wonderful quotable sections. For example, … Continue reading
The Multivalence of Infrastructure I – Roads
As always Paul Rabinow’s French Modern is an extraordinary reminder of how transport infrastructures serve functions at once military and commercial – and in fact “war, commerce, and transit” (in Paul Nizan’s memorable phrase) cannot be prised apart. Here is Rabinow … Continue reading
Machineries of Joy: Wrestling with the technological sublime
This one is for my friends Rachel Shabi and Waleed Hazbun, who might recognise something of the pathos of our common paternal utopias in it… 11 February 2015 “Hyperbole is the main stock in trade of publicists, boosters and even … Continue reading
About Today: Steaming the security seas
10 February 2015 Everything anticipated our entry into what I can only call security seas. There are ships that do not send signals: they turn out to be warships of a sort, small, compact, going only at 7 knots with … Continue reading
Reading Capital 2 on a containership
8 February 2015 You begin to realise how much Marx actually crafted his writing when you compare Capital I to Capital II. The former is beautifully edited, funny, extensively footnoted, erudite, and with a gorgeous narrative structure that inexorably push … Continue reading
Areia de Salamanca: The Razzia in the 16th century
5 February 2015 I borrowed Braudel’s discussion of the presidios on the North African coast yesterday to reflect on logistics… But as I read on, there was also the counterinsurgency element against the colonials (about which Braudel seems remarkably sanguine; … Continue reading
Posted in 2015 Trip, empire, imperialism & colonialism, militaries, ports, readings, the sea, war
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Maritime Marriages
I have had the pleasure of reading Fernand Braudel’s The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (Vol. II) while in Malta. When I first searched for Malta in the index, I was so pleased to see … Continue reading
The Gamming 