Oral Presentation Session

Reviewed by: Society for Cultural Anthropology

Of interest to: Practicing and Applied Anthropologists, Teachers of Anthropology in Community Colleges, Students

Primary Theme: Materiality

Secondary Theme: Labor

(2-0380) From Port to Port (Part 1) : Maritime Merchandise and Logistics Labour

Through complex systems of logistics that support the global economy, commodities are moved overseas following a “just-in-time” logic. Taking place at critical intersections between sea and land, the power over actual logistical operations is negotiated at different levels between a range of actors; from powerful multinational shipping companies and local authorities, to the workers at sea and in ports who move the goods on a daily basis. Cargo circulation is furthermore dependent upon complex, and often unstable, maritime infrastructures and brokerage systems.

This panel asks how a focus on maritime logistics, infrastructures and labour can contribute to our current understandings of the global economy and its social challenges. While geographers have worked on these issues for decades, we aim to show how an anthropological take on maritime mobility offers unique insights into the sociocultural contexts that simultaneously affect and are affected by the circulation of commodities.
With a comparative stance, this panel brings together ethnographic contributions from a range of geographical settings that approach maritime merchandise and the sociocultural dimensions and implications of global logistics. These include the building and maintenance of port infrastructures, new technology and automatization, shipping finance and brokerage, as well as the often precarious logistics labour of seafarers, dock- and transport workers.

Organizer(s)

• Hege Leivestad

  Stockholm University

Chair(s)

• Hege Leivestad

  Stockholm University

Presenter(s)

• Hege Leivestad

  Stockholm University

• Nina Sylvanus

  Associate Professor
  Northeastern University

• Marte Giskeødegård

  Associate Professor
  Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Organizer(s)

• Johanna Markkula

  PhD Candidate
  Stanford University

Presenter(s)

• Johanna Markkula

  PhD Candidate
  Stanford University

• Nethra Samarawickrema

  Ph.D Candidate
  Stanford University

Presentations:

• 2:15 PM - 2:30 PM

  Freight Future: Maritime Logistics at Europe’s End
  Hege Höyer Leivestad – Stockholm University
• 2:30 PM - 2:45 PM

  Harboring the Future: Maritime logistics, labor and port governance in West Africa
  Nina Sylvanus – Northeastern University
• 2:45 PM - 3:00 PM

  Maritime Logistics and Work Community - Working in the Interface Between Locally Specific Conditions and Global Demands
  Marte Fanneløb Giskeødegård – Norwegian University of Science and Technology
• 3:00 PM - 3:15 PM

  “All in the Same Boat”: the Social Labor of Seafarers on Multicultural Cargo Ships
  Johanna Markkula – Stanford University
• 3:15 PM - 3:30 PM

  Traces of the Seas: Maritime Histories and the Trade of Sri Lankan Sapphires
  Nethra Samarawickrema – Stanford University