"The Logistics of Life and Death: Cartographies of Empire"


 Gender and Sexuality Studies     Apr 21 2016 | 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Social Science Plaza A, Room 1100

The International Studies Public Forum and Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies present

“The Logistics of Life and Death: Cartographies of Empire”
Deborah Cowen
Associate Professor, Department of Geography & Planning,
University of Toronto

How has the seemingly banal and technocratic work of moving stuff been the heart of Imperial violence for centuries, if not millennia? What might an engagement with the geo-histories of logistics teach us about the workings of Empire today? How did the ‘revolution in logistics’ of the last 50 years recast global trade and battle space? This lecture offers a cartography of logistics from the North American heart of Empire, looking to both the battlefield and the boardroom to glean insight. From settler colonialism and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, to the rise of petroleum warfare, to the birth of the modern supply chain, it highlights the rise of a logistical society and the profound political, economic and martial transformations that remain hidden in plain sight. Not simply a technocratic field of management, logistics is a highly political technoscience that governs the geopolitics of circulation, recasting state borders and blurring the boundaries of war.

This talk is sponsored by the Institute for International, Global and Regional Studies (IIGARS) and Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies.

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