Logistics Violence and Harm: Unpacking Supply Chain Capitalism for a Critical Southern Criminology
We live in a world where 10% of the population takes 52% of the global income, while the poorest half survives on just 8.5% (Chancel et al. 2022). This wealth inequality is more severe within the Global South, where there is an extreme disparity between wealthier and poorer zones. This economic inequality also comes with high levels of state and non-state violence. For example, in 2022, 177 environmental activists were killed, 88% of them in Amazon rainforest countries, while none were murdered in the Global North (Butler 2023). This highlights the violent conditions under which raw material suppliers operate.
Despite these issues, much of criminology work still focuses on central, wealthier societies, ignoring the repressive dynamics in poorer regions. Recently, Southern criminology has emerged to address this gap, aiming to include perspectives from the Global South and revolutionise methodologies. However, some critics argue that Southern criminology, like the broader decolonization agenda, often focuses too much on symbolic changes, such as altering museum displays or reforming bibliographies, instead of tackling the deeper issues of exploitation and violence driven by global capitalism.
In an article published in Sociology Compass, we suggest that criminology could provide a more potent analysis of the harms suffered in poorer societies by focusing on the global supply chain. Scholars in critical logistics studies (e.g., Cowen 2010, 2014; Danyluk 2017; Chua et al. 2018) have developed ways to connect crime and security to existing colonial arrangements, offering a new lens for understanding global capitalism.
Revealing the Harmful Dynamics of Contemporary Capitalism
Over the last four decades, a ‘logistics revolution’ has occurred, where companies strive to improve efficiency in production, warehousing, and trade. This revolution involves innovations like containerization in shipping, free-trade zones, global infrastructure networks, and financial systems. While logistics might seem technical, it’s actually about political power, with governments and businesses influencing logistics operations worldwide.
By examining logistics innovations, we can ask new questions about the relationship between global inequality and security, crime, and violence. Firstly, logistics show how the entire world is integrated into a single economic system, but this integration depends on geographical differentiation. Different areas face unique forms of exploitation and violence. Secondly, logistics capitalism incorporates existing social hierarchies based on gender, class, and race, requiring various forms of social control and ‘police’ power. Lastly, logistics capitalism relies on extensive security measures, from state-led military interventions to private security guarding goods in malls. These security projects are crucial for maintaining labor discipline, managing migration, and securing trade flows and raw materials.
Using a criminological approach grounded in critical logistics studies allows us to explore how imperialism is continuously recreated and challenged. This approach helps us understand the global distribution of harm, both to people and the environment, as linked to supply chains. Moreover, it highlights how security under late capitalism involves new forms of policing and military intervention, shaping today’s unequal world system.
Focusing on global capitalism as constructed through world-spanning spatial relations avoids the pitfalls of overly abstract analyses or those that reduce issues to politics or culture. Instead, it centres on the complex political and economic dynamics that drive global inequality.
References
- Butler, S. (2023). 177 environmental activists killed in 2022. Geographical. Available at Geographical
- Chancel, L., Piketty, T., Saez, E., Zucman, G., et al. World Inequality Report 2022. World Inequality Lab.
- Chua, C., Danyluk, M., Cowen, D., and Khalili, L. (2018). Introduction: Turbulent Circulation: Building a Critical Engagement with Logistics. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 35(4), 617-629.
- Cowen, D. (2010). A Geography of Logistics: Market Authority and the Security of Supply Chains. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100(3), 600-620.
- Cowen, D. (2014). The Deadly Life of Logistics: Mapping the Violence of Global Trade. Minnesota: Minnesota University Press.
- Danyluk, M. (2017). Capital’s Logistical Fix: Accumulation, Globalization, and the Survival of Capitalism. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36(4), 630-647.
