Blogroll
- Critical Logistics
- Fabulous and weird website full of all sorts of info
- Geographical Imaginations
- International Transport Workers' Federation
- Middle East Report
- Object Lessons (on containers)
- Oceans Beyond Piracy
- Paleofutures – good tech stuff
- Port to port
- Progressive Geographies
- Sapping Attention
- STS Blog at Oxford
- The Funambulist
- Visual Complexity
Categories
- 2015 Trip 2016 Trip capital accumulation construction empire empire, imperialism & colonialism environment finance and insurance free ports/zones imperialism & colonialism infrastructure labour literature logistics media Melville Middle East militaries oil political economy ports readings seafaring shipping conditions ships the sea transport Travels Uncategorized war
Archives
Category Archives: ports
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
Leave a comment
Grace: Departing Marsaxlokk
Marsaxlokk-Jabal Ali: At last at sea 5 February 2015 11.00 Occasionally in the night, the ship bumps against the berth and that is when one remembers that one is not on solid ground. I can’t wait for our ship to … Continue reading
Posted in 2015 Trip, labour, political economy, ports, readings, shipping conditions, transport, Travels
Leave a comment
Malta to Dubai on a freighter
It all started off with this FT piece by Horatio Clare, whose book (a meditative reflection on ships and travel on the sea) was about to come out. I had just finished reading Rose George’s amazing book on her travels on a … Continue reading
Posted in Middle East, ports, ships
Leave a comment
Sha’bi cosmopolitanisms
There is very little that is original in this post, but I want to put it down anyway, because the affects of this moment are lovely; something that I want to remember when I think about so much that is … Continue reading
Posted in capital accumulation, labour, Middle East, ports, the sea
2 Comments
Benjamin’s grim writing on Marseille
Marseilles Walter Benjamin The street . . . the only valid field of experience. – Andre Breton Marseilles-the yellow-studded maw of a seal with salt water running out between the teeth. When this gullet opens to catch the black and brown proletarian … Continue reading
Posted in literature, ports, readings
4 Comments
Stand-Up Beer Hall
Stand-Up Beer Hall Walter Benjamin Sailors seldom come ashore ; service on the high seas is a holiday by comparison with the labour in harbours, where loading and unloading must often be done day and night. When a gang is then given a … Continue reading
Ghost ships
In the last two weeks, two ships filled to the brim with hundreds of Syrian refugees have been brought in to Italian ports. The ships seem to have left Eastern Mediterranean, and sailed parallel to the Turkish coast, picking up … Continue reading
At sea on an island as a cyclone comes
This book is neither about ports and the labour of dockers nor about shipping and transport. But I have to write about it because it is one of the most stunning books I have stumbled into during my obsessive reading … Continue reading
Posted in literature, ports
Leave a comment
Golden Dawn recruited by shipping magnates to break unions
‘[Golden Dawn] created battalions against their political opponents, and then they rented them out, to whoever wanted to rent them,” he told Channel 4 News. In one of the most important cases, a network of businessmen active in the shipping industry … Continue reading
The blue banana
Last week, huge protests took place in Brussels, with the trade unions reporting some 130,000-150,000 people showing up; and major clashes with the police. The protests in fact have been going on for some time now. And in the April … Continue reading
The Gamming 