Logistics and Power: Supply Chains from Slavery to Space, with Susan Zieger

Logistics describes the just-in-time supply chains that make consumer capitalism possible in the twenty-first century. It has seeped into every corner of our imaginations and behaviours, transforming us into logistical subjects who must manage our lives through the systems and schedules of late modernity. But where does logistics come from? What are its pressure points and paradoxes? And how does it shape our culture and society?
In this episode of the Thinking Through Infrastructure podcast, Dom sat down with Susan Zieger, professor of English at the University of California in Riverside, to discuss her latest book, Logistics and Power: Supply Chains from Slavery to Space. The conversation covered just some of the book’s many supply chain stories, which take us from the lettuce in your fridge to the manacles of the Middle Passage, from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to extra-terrestrial networks. Together, these stories show us how logistics blur the lines between peace and war, and how counter-logistics can create more human spaces in a world that is otherwise governed by commodity power.
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