Thinking Inside the Box: Space, World Politics and the Shipping Container Alejandro Cols, Birkbeck College

VERY EAR Y !RA"T # $%T "%R CITATI%$ Technology discloses mans mode of dealing with Nature, the rocess of roduction by which he sustains his life, and thereby also lays bare the mode of formation of his social relations, and of the mental conce tions that flow from them! "!!!# The weak oints in the abstract materialism of natural science, a materialism that e$cludes history and its rocess, are at once e%ident from the abstract and ideological conce tions of its s okesmen, whene%er they %enture beyond the bounds of their own s eciality! &ar$, Ca ital 'ol! (, cha ter )*! (snt technology a fucking bomb+ ,erc to Car%er, The -ire, .eries ((! The second season of the ,B/ show The Wire offers students of (0 an in%aluable materialist insight into the nature of s ace and ower in contem orary world olitics! 1rom the o ening e isode built around a dis ute o%er the jurisdictional custody of a floating cor se, through to the climatic scenes unmasking those res onsible for the deadly human traffic inside freight containers, the s atial organisation of the globe is laid bare for the %iewer, albeit from the local ers ecti%e of Baltimores less salubrious neighbourhoods! (ndeed, the freight container, a si$ to si$ty2se%en cubic metre steel or aluminium bo$, becomes a ci her throughout this series for a whole host of local and transnational social relations marked by ethnic, gender and class clea%ages! (ns ired by the role of the container in The Wires drama, this a er seeks to make the metal bo$ a rotagonist in a materialist analysis of world olitics today! This is artly because of the ob%ious fact that the container itself is a s ace 2howe%er reduced in scale2 of ca italist globalisation! (t hysically embodies the transnational circulation of commodities which has been so central to the integration of the world economy o%er the ast centuries! But following the social life of the freight container also allows us to identify a number of im ortant s atial dynamics which are critical in the re roduction of the key structures in world olitics! 1oremost among these are, rather con%entionally, the global economy, the national state and international institutions! The container is resent in each of these social structures, not sim ly as a form of storage and trans ortation, but also as a social force with its own material ower in the sha ing of the international system! (n what follows ( focus s ecifically on the shi ing container in relation to, res ecti%ely, technology, nature and the law! ( suggest that the thinking about the bo$ in relation to these domains hel s to e$ lain s atio2tem oral rocesses of measurement and standardisation, roduction and management of global s ace, and the conflicti%e enforcement of di%erse jurisdictions in world olitics! All of these rocesses are in one way or another a$iomatic to the re roduction of the modern international system! Thinking about them from inside the bo$ arguably gi%es us a better handle on the com le$ s atial dynamics of modern world olitics!

Although it is a secondary concern of this contribution, the discussion that follows is ine%itably remised on a s ecific conce tion of matter, materialism and things! ( ado t an historical2geogra hical materialist a roach ins ired by 3a%id ,ar%eys seminal work, but drawing on a wider range of &ar$ist theorists of s ace and nature 2 including Neil .mith, Alfred .chmidt and 4ohn Bellamy21oster! 0ather than delay the substanti%e discussion with a lengthy e$ osition of the difference between a historical2geogra hical and other, new, critical or %italist materialisms, ( shall try and incor orate rele%ant contrasts as the a er roceeds! By way of a headline message, howe%er, the chief difference is the em hasis on une5ual ower relations and causal hierarchies 6 howe%er contingent 6 resent in a historical2geogra hical materialist understanding of the relationshi between society and nature, or humans and things! The new, %ibrant materialism on the other hand both rejects the distinction between the social and the natural, and is dee ly sce tical about clear causal hierarchies in either of these domains 6 the world on this %iew is far messier, com le$ and de2centred than a historical materialist em hasis on class relations would allow for! As ( ho e illustrate below, there is much sco e for con%ergence between these different e$ ressions of materialism, yet the elision of une5ual distribution of ower and ca abilities in the world, and the historical articularity of this redicament under a global ca italist system resent two major stumbling blocks in any 5uest to reconcile historical and the new, critical materialism! &That's e((icienc), $at' /f all the s atial meta hors for the rocess we ha%e come to know as globali7ation, the shi ing container 8and its more acti%e deri%ation, containeri7ation9 is erha s the most emblematic! The container &arc :e%inson asserts, made shi ing chea , and by doing so changed the sha e of the world economy ";# This new economic geogra hy allowed firms whose ambitions had been urely domestic to become international com anies, e$ orting their roducts almost as effortlessly as selling them nearby!) Another history of the container concurs< (t is difficult to imagine any situation ; where the fundamental dynamics associated with the henomenon of globali7ation 6o en markets, free trade, international cor orations whose manufacturing facilities are continually shifted to countries where the costs of roduction are better able to be constrained6 will not continue to re%ail! To the e$tent that they do re%ail, fleets of =bo$ boats> will continue to be necessary to kee the rocess going and mo%e roduct to market! ? :ea%ing aside contro%ersies o%er its e$act contribution to the reduction of long2distance freight costs or increased global trade, the shi ing container is undoubtedly a signal feature of the contem orary world market< it is estimated that since ?@@A, A@ er cent of the worlds non2bulk cargo is carried on shi ing containers, while according to the -orld .hi ing Council there is currently a world2wide fleet of close to B@ million Twenty2foot C5ui%alent Dnit 8TCD9 containers, as o osed to a mere E!* million TCD in )AA@!B Fet e%en the most enthusiastic su orters of the shi ing container as an agent of globalisation recognise that this freight technology was not sim ly the roduct of
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&! :e%inson, The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger 8Grinceton, N4 and /$ford< Grinceton Dni%ersity Gress, ?@@E9 ! ?2B! ? B!4! Couhady, Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the World, 8New Fork< 1ordham Dni%ersity Gress, ?@@E9, !?H@! B htt <IIwww!worldshi ing!orgIabout2the2industryIcontainersIglobal2container2fleet! 3ownloaded )J .e tember ?@)?!

entre reneurial ingenuity or the result of a natural tendency for markets to seek cost2 effecti%eness and global economies of scale! (n fact, the uni%ersalisation of the bo$ as a cargo2carrier was a fraught and rotracted rocess, initially ro elled less by global market forces than by war abroad, olitical lobbying at home and class antagonisms in local waterfronts! 1rom this more olitical2sociological ers ecti%e, the rise and ubi5uity of the container is considered as social force with se%eral s atio2tem oral effects, two of which are worth underlining here! The first of these surrounds the issue of measurement and standardisation! /ne of the chief attractions of the TCD bo$ is of course its standard yet inter2modal features! :ike money, e$change %alue or abstract labour, the container can o erate both as a uni%ersal e5ui%alent of %olume and as a %ery concrete cargo s ace, carrying the infinite %ariety of goods which makes market choice such a owerful element in the rhetoric of globalisation! The container thus acts as the erfect %ehicle through which to flatten global social relations 8or batter down Chinese walls as &ar$ and Cngels would ha%e it9! (t offers a standard measure that accelerates the subordination of s ace to time under ca italist globalisation! -hen 1rank .obotka and his union comrade Nat attend a resentation on the effects of containerisation on the 0otterdam docks, the itch is an eminently tem oral one< Kentlemen! :adies! The future is now declares the G0 suit before handing o%er to the romotional %ideo< To bring goods to an e$ loding global economy, and to deli%er those goods faster, chea er and safer, modern robotics do much of the work !!!! H Container technology, it is intimated, eliminates error, accident and inaccuracy by drastically reducing the number of man2 hours em loyed in rocessing the cargo! Thats efficiency, Nat chi s in a fellow audience2member! But the managements G0 man is immune to any irony, intentional or otherwise! ,is mantra is the uni%ersality of standardisation No, no, they work with all kinds of cargo, in all kinds of weather! This a arent tem oral mastery o%er all and any geogra hical 5uirk 6 including the weather 6 is howe%er, not sim ly the seamless trium h of a mechanical, abstract, technological materialism, but the contradictory outcome of decades of committee, subcommittee and working grou meetings among sector e$ erts aimed at securing inter2modal com atibility within and across states! &arc :e%inson deli%ers an e$cellent summary of this tortuous rocess which started off in the late )A*@s with se%eral D. go%ernment agencies 8most rominently, the &aritime Administration, &arad9, the largest American carriers 8 rinci ally Gan2Atlantic and &atson9 and ri%ate sector organisations 8American .tandards Association9 thrashing out common standards for both container si7e and container construction! This rocess was lagued by com eting go%ernment riorities, inter2firm and inter2sector ri%alry, as well as by hysical considerations of length, height, weight and %olume! (t was further com ounded once the (nternational .tandards /rganisation was tasked in )AE) with setting international guidelines on containers! -hat is striking about this con%oluted, decade2long e$ercise is how, des ite the different interests ulling in all directions, working com romises were reached by the late )AE@s which in turn a%ed the way for the containerisation re%olution of the J@s! 1inally, :e%inson concludes, it was becoming ossible to fill a container with freight in Lansas City with a high degree of
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All 5uotations from The -ire are taken from the in%aluable online transcri tion a%ailable at htt <IIwww!silicon%alleyfrogs!comIthewireI

confidence that almost any trucks, trains, orts, and shi s would be able to mo%e it smoothly all the way to Luala :um ur!* The arado$ here is of course that the smooth, unstriated world of transnational seaborne trade was made ossible by territorially2bound national and international institutions 6 something which well return to later! This tension raises a second s atial effect which also challenges any mechanical or abstract materialism, namely the fact that such technological transformations were remised on rofoundly olitical, and dee ly localised battles o%er man2hours! 3ocks and those who work in them ha%e historically been at the forefront of struggles o%er the working day and technological inno%ations aimed at raising roducti%ity in the work lace! As such, it is unsur rising that much of the history of containerisation is taken u by labour dis utes surrounding the re lacement of men by machines! Glainly, the container is in this sense not just a mere object of globalisation, or e%en an assemblage of matter intertwined with other actants, but an e$ ression of une5ual and antagonistic social relations 8and the mental conce tions that flow from them9! .truggles o%er that enclosed s ace, the bo$, are interconnected to conflicts in other s aces 6 whether its a gi%en Gort Authority or Chinese factories churning out rubber ducks! (t is, howe%er, only recently that the narrower s atial dynamics of containerisation 6 aside from the im ortant, but fairly ob%ious issue of global relocation 6 ha%e been considered! 1or containerisation generates what Andrew ,erod has called s atial sabotage< a rocess whereby "w#orkers may seek to restructure the s atial relations within which they li%e their li%es as art of a strategy of resisting change and job loss!E (n a detailed analysis of the )AEA 0ules on Containers agreement between em loyers associations and waterfront unions in the American Cast Coast, ,erod resents a icture of an industrial landsca e of the eastern D. seaboard and its hinterland sha ed by three contending forces! The first re%ol%ed around the *@2mile rule enshrined in the 0ules, whereby only waterfront union members were entitled to stuff and stri 8load and unload9 any containers lea%ing or landing within a fifty2 mile radius of a North Atlantic ort from New Fork City down to -ilmington in 3elaware 8this was e%entually e$tended to include all eastern orts from &aine to Te$as as well as the .outh 1lorida and -est Kulf iers9! As ,erod suggests, the 0ules roduced "b#oth a space and a scale 8defined by the *@2mile radius9 within which it could regulated container2handling work!J (t e$ ressed labours own s atial fi$ in its struggle with ca ital! .econdly, howe%er, such s atial sabotage was also challenged by off2 ier labour 8 rinci ally truckers and warehouse workers9 in%ol%ed in the inland art of the commodity chain! ,ere, a sectoral or inter2union ri%alry takes on a determinately s atial character as each set of workers literally seeks to defend its own atch! 1inally, ,erod underlines how the %ery local and highly intense struggles in the New Fork docks e%entually deli%ered rules on containers which ser%ed as a tem late for other regional and national agreements< By forcing em loyers from &aine to Te$as ultimately to ado t the 0ules first as local contract and conditions and later as art of a national contract, the (:.A not only sha ed local

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:e%inson, op.cit!, ! )HA! A! ,erod, Labor eographies: Wor!ers and the Landscapes o" Capitalism 8New Fork and :ondon< Kuilford Gress, ?@@)9, ! J)! J (bid!, ! ME! (talics in original!

labor markets in each of the B@2odd orts in which it organi7ed dockers but also sha ed the economic geogra hy of the industry nationally! M The u shot of these com le$ and contradictory social struggles and legal dis utes is the articulation of the :efeb%rian triad of ercei%ed, concei%ed and li%ed s aces! The container as a hysical s ace a ears historically as a social force with significant effects on the way in which workers 8and indeed managers9 e$ erience relati%e and relational s aces< how they concei%e and go about their e%eryday li%es, both in and outside the work lace! The container thus becomes something which roduces %arious socio2economic and olitical s aces and scales, mediating the natural and the social, the local and trans2local, the human and osthuman! (n this regard, the second season of The Wire once again re resents the constant resha ing of social s aces through traffic 8in its broadest sense9 whilst simultaneously and uns aringly highlighting the rigid segregation of those %ery s aces along ethnic, class, gender and e%en regional lines< 3ragon< -eN%e been gone so far outta Baltimore man were losing the station! Try some Ghilly station or some shit like that! Bodie< -hat the radio in Ghilly is different+ 3ragon< Glease! Fou%e gotta be fucking with me right+ Fou aint ne%er heard of radio station outside of Baltimore+O Bodie< No man ( aint ne%er left Baltimore e$ce t that boy %illage shit, one day, and ( wasnt trying to get no radio ";# -hy would anyone want to lea%e Baltimore man, thats what (m asking+ &I'* Also Talking A+o,t the Canal' That containers roduce s ace on %arious geogra hical scales may not be so contro%ersial among materialist (0 scholars! But the claim that containers also roduce nature is erha s more contentious! ( want to suggest in this ne$t section 6 drawing on the theoretical work of the late Neil .mith and the illustration of Arctic thawing 6 that this is e$actly what containers do! /r more recisely, that considering the role of containerisation as one of the major dri%ers behind year2round na%igation of the Arctic /cean discloses "our# mode of dealing with nature! The gradual disa earance of the Arctic ice sheets has of course been one of the chief indicators of our lanets wider en%ironmental crisis! /ne recent study suggests that Arctic sea ice has shrunk by )M er cent since ?@@J 6 the year that witnessed the lanting of the 0ussian flag on the :omonoso% 0idge below the North Gole and the o ening of the Northwest Gassage to ice2free na%igation! A Both these e%ents are sym tomatic of what has been labelled the Keo olitics of Arctic &elt< a situation where "m#elting Arctic ice transforms the region from one of rimarily scientific and en%ironmental concerns into a maelstrom of com eting commercial, national security

(bid!, ! AA! Arctic ice shrinks )MP against record, sounding climate change alarm bells The Kuardian, )A .e tember, ?@)?! htt <IIwww!guardian!co!ukIen%ironmentI?@)?Ise I)AIarctic2ice2shrinks! 3ownloaded ?EI@AI)?! .ee also, .cott K! Borgerson, Arctic &eltdown< The Cconomic and .ecurity (m lications of Klobal -arming #oreign $""airs, 'ol! MJ, No!?, A ril ?@@M, ! EB2JJ!
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and en%ironmental concerns ;!)@ The im lication of this shift from rimarily scientific to geo olitical conce tions of the Arctic is that these are 5uite recent de%elo ments, marking a transformation of the Arctic from a natural to a socio2 olitical domain! The Arctic on this account a ears as a fairly undifferentiated and unblemished natural s ace which has only lately become the object of socio2economic and olitical intrusion! Fet as Llaus 3odds and other critical2geo olitical scholars ha%e shown, the Arctic is 6like other seemingly remote and e$ce tional regions of the globe 6 a s ace roduced relationally "f#rom relationshi s between human actors and their networks ";# (t is not climate change and Arctic e$ce tionalism that roduce geo olitical inter%entions, it is the identification of climate change as a security issue, and subse5uent identification of the Arctic as a s ace of e$ce tion, that enable geo olitical inter%ention ;!)) .uch geo olitical inter%entions are, furthermore, art of a longer trajectory of socio2natural relations in this region 6 from successi%e human settlements to the twentieth2century e$ lorations 2 which need to be factored into any consideration of the contem orary roduction of Arctic s ace! 1rom an historical2materialist ers ecti%e, the key to understanding these trajectories is to frame them within s ecific sets of social relations! /n this reading, different modes of roduction 6 most notably ca italism 6 are accom anied by distincti%e social metabolisms with nature, which in turn generate uni5ue s atial logics and dynamics! Neil .mith is one of a number of &ar$ist thinkers who tried to theorise this com le$ relationshi between society and nature at %arious ontological, e istemological and ractical le%els! (n essence, .mith ado ts ,egels distinction between a first 8gi%en9 and a second 8 roduced9 nature and moors it to the &ar$ian differentiation between use2 and e$change %alue! Thus, the distincti%eness of nature under ca italism is a dri%e toward a unity between these two natures! (t is .mith a%ers, certainly a materialist unity but it is not the hysical or biological unity of the natural scientist! 0ather it is a social unity centred on the roduction rocess! )? Nature becomes increasingly socialised, so to s eak, without thereby losing all of its natural, material ro erties< The same iece of matter e$ists, simultaneously in both natures< as hysical commodity subject to the laws of gra%ity and hysics it e$ists in the first nature, but as e$change2%alue subject to the laws of the market, it tra%els in the second nature! ,uman labor roduced the first nature, human relations roduces the second!)B (n the case of the Arctic region, socio2natural relations ha%e been marked by an intensified ca italist %alorisation of nature! Consonant with other frontierland e$ eriences, the Arctic has been resented as a wilderness which needs to be tamed and enclosed in order to command and e$ loit its enormous unta ed resources! The melting of the Arctic sea ice 2 itself of course a roduct of human2induced global warming 6 has, to be sure, transformed the en%ironmental conditions for the ca italist a ro riation of nature in that area! But, ara hrasing the earlier 5uotation from 3odds and his colleagues, it is not global warming and Arctic melt that roduce the %alorisation of the region, but the ca italist 5uest for %alue and the identification of
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Charles L! Cbinger and C! Qambetakis, The Keo olitics of Arctic &elt %nternational $""airs, 'ol! M*, No!E, ?@@A, ! )?)*2)?B?, ! )?)*! )) Llaus 3odds et al! ,a%e Fou ,eard the /ne About the 3isa earing (ce+< 0ecasting Arctic Keo olitics &olitical eography, 'ol! B@, No!), ?@)), ! ?@?2?)H, ! ?@B! )? Neil .mith, 'ne(en )e(elopment: *at+re, Capital and the &rod+ction o" Space 8/$ford< Basil Blackwell, )AMH9, ! BMA! )B (bid!, ! BMA!

the Arctic as a resource2rich s ace that renders it as a new frontier of ca ital accumulation! But what has the container to do in all this+ Two things, at least! 1irst and erha s most ob%iously, the container 2 as a cargo technology aimed at reducing the cost of long2distance trade 6 stands to offer, and therefore make, considerable gains from the year2round o ening of Arctic sea2lanes! A ermanently na%igable Northwest Gassage 8through North America9 or Northern .ea 0oute 8o%er Curasia9 could sha%e whole days off e$isting shi ing routes from Cast Asia to Curo e and North America, thereby also a%oiding unstable and often erilous choke oints such as the .trait of ,ormu7, the Kulf of Aden or the &alacca .trait! /n some estimates, these shortcuts could cut the cost of a single %oyage by a large container shi by as much as ?@ er cent 6 from a ro$imately R)J!* million to R)Hmillion 6 sa%ing the shi ing industry billions of dollars a year!)H True, these reductions are redicated on a number of interconnected uncertainties 6 global energy rices, access to Arctic hydrocarbons, building of new ice2ca able shi ing fleets, the continuation of changing weather atterns and so on!)* Fet the continued ri%ate and ublic in%estment into Arctic ros ecting, broadly concei%ed, suggests a strategic commitment to e$ loiting those otential sea2lanes! The causal connections between containerisation and the o ening of circum olar routes to all2year shi ing are, a ro riately, com le$! But in the same way that the holds of Atlantic sla%e shi s came to embody the ower of mercantile em ires, the container can be said to crystallise the im erialism of free trade! Both forms of commerce are remised on intercontinental shi ing< while first generated wealth by forcibly and %iolently trans orting human cargo from one market to the other, the second creates wealth by distributing things manufactured by ostensibly free labour in one economy to another! -hereas the sla%e shi was about controlling eo le in order to e$ loit territory, the container shi is about controlling territory in order to e$ loit eo le! This last argument brings us to the second, more indirect manner in which the container contributes to the a ro riation of Arctic nature, and that is through claims to territorial so%ereignty by Arctic states! The aforementioned 0ussian submission to the DN Commission on the :imits to the Continental .helf 8C:C.9, claiming that &oscow had so%ereign rights o%er the natural resources of art of the Arctic seabed is the most commonly cited e$am le of this rocess of re2territorialisation! But it is erha s Canadas contested jurisdiction o%er the Northwest Gassage which is most aradigmatic of the tensions between free trade and state so%ereignty enca sulated in the container! /ttawa has historically considered the Northwest Gassage as art of Canadas internal waters, but other states 2 es ecially the D.A 2 ha%e claimed the Gassage constitutes an international waterway o en to innocent assage for shi s of all flags! Canada has in art defended its so%ereignty o%er these Arctic waters by suggesting that, since they are fro7en for much of the year, they constitute e$tensions of the countrys landmass! -ith the ros ect of an ice2free sea2lane in the coming decades, Canadian so%ereignty o%er these waters will be com romised! The con%entional resolution of such dis utes generally in%ol%es one of two routes< international law or the unilateral assertion of national so%ereignty! The roblem with the first is that reference to the DN Con%ention on the :aw of the .ea 8DNC:/.9 has
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Borgerson, op.cit!, !J@! Cbinger S Qambekatis, op. cit!

generally lead to rocrastination and fudging when it comes to dis utes o%er territorial waters! &oreo%er, -ashington is not a signatory to DNC:/. and so in the s ecific case of the status of the Northwest Gassage, the com eting D. and Canadian claims are managed through the )AMM bilateral Arctic Co2/ eration Agreement which in essence guarantees Canadian agreement to assage by American %essels so long as consent is re5uested first! The ros ect of an ice2free Gassage, howe%er, has made the second o tion 6 unlilateral territorial assertion 6 a more urgent one! The rinci le of use it, or lose it loudly roclaimed by Canadian Grime &inister .te hen ,ar er in ?@@J, rom ted the re2territorialisation of Canadas Arctic regions through in%estment in offshore atrols, a dee 2sea ort and the u grading of e$isting military installations in Canadas North! Glainly, these efforts at effecti%e occu ation of o en s aces can be read as art of a wider erformance of Arctic geo olitics where, The regions coding a s a feminine s ace to be tamed by masculine e$ loits ro%ides an arena for national magnification!)E Fet, from a materialist ers ecti%e, the commercial im erati%es dri%ing such magnification are inesca able! (n defending our nations so%ereignty .te hen ,ar er declared in ?@@J nothing is as fundamental as rotecting Canadas territorial integrityT our borders, our airs ace and our waters! &ore and more, as global commerce routes chart a ath to Canadas North and as the oil, gas and minerals of this frontier become more %aluable, northern resource de%elo ment will grow e%er more critical to our country!)J The roduction of s ace through the a ro riation of nature in the case of the contem orary Arctic is ine$tricably associated to the container as a technology which dri%es the cost2cutting 5uest for faster intercontinental sea2lanes! Nature on this account is no longer an alien, e$ternal forceT nor is it, as in some other materialist ers ecti%es an un redictable, de2centered and unfathomably com le$ assemblage! (t is instead a owerful but subordinated socio2economic and olitical force, subject to mani ulation for the ur oses of %alue2creation! 1rank .ebotka understands this material ower of waterways when he uts it to his lobbyist Brucie, that the s ace that needs to be roduced is not a ier but a canal< (Nm o erating under the assum tion that because of your relentless diligence, the funding for the grain ier is gonna ass the Assembly! But (Nm also talking about the canal, so youNre gonna talk about the canal, so the &uldoons who run the old line state, theyNre gonna talk about he canal Ntil someday, someway, that motherfucker gets dredged and we get some shi s in here! &-orning Tides and Wind C,rrents' The intermodal character of the container is generally seen as one of the major reasons behind its success as a freight technology! The sectors ioneering firm was called .ea2:and .er%ices for a reason< it romised the smooth transit from truck to shi 8and %ice2%ersa9, thereby shrinking distance and reducing cost! This was, for many, a signal moment in the annihilation of s ace by timeT containeri7ation had become the material e$ ression of globali7ation! Fet as we ha%e already seen, this is at best, only half the story! 1or the terra5ueous nature of our lanet has doggedly resisted the uni%ersal flattening of the earth through the ower of a metal bo$! The
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3odds et al!, ,a%e Fou ,eard, ! ?@*! Grime &inister of Canadas /ffice, Grimer &inister .te hen ,ar er Announces new offshore Gatrol .hi s htt <IIwww! m!gc!caIengImedia!as +idU)JH?! 3ownloaded ? /ctober ?@)?!

high seas do act as the ultimate free trade area, ser%ing as highways for the cherished flow of commodities across an o en, global economy 8as well as harbouring some of the worst em loyment ractices and o erating one of the most o a5ue cor orate go%ernance systems9! But this outlaw sea is no good onshore< as stated earlier, one of the features of a ro erly ca italist, free trade im erialism is its reliance on s atial fi$es 6 ie! control o%er territory in order to better e$ loit workers! Ca italist cor orations 6 including shi ing and container firms 6 rely on de endable territorial jurisdictions to secure the reali7ation of %alue by, inter alia, enforcing contract law, offering the re5uisite ancillary ser%ices 8insurance, banking, legal ser%ices, (T su ort and so on9 and securing a working trans ort and communications infrastructure! The arado$, for our ur oses, is this< a form of social re roduction inherently based around circulation, flows and mobility simultaneously demands the regulation and control of such mo%ement, generally through the enforcement of a territorial jurisdiction! 0e%iel Net7 has ut the oint elo5uently, using the e$am le of railways< "t#he re%ention of motion is in some sense more fundamental than the facilitation of motion! A train is worthless unless you can re%ent some eo le2 those who did no urchase a ticket 6 from boarding it! :ike all ro erty, a train becomes %aluable only when access to it can be controlled, and so the system of the railroad 6lines that connects oints 2 is anchored in a system of stations, buildings whose walled lines enclose s ace and control motion! A world where the railroad e$ists without the station is unthinkable, because without control o%er motion, %alue cannot be formed! 'alue arises from lines of di%ision 6 e%en when they ha en to enclose lines of connection! To understand history and its motions, then, we must first understand the history of the re%ention of motion!)M These insights could e5ually be a lied to the maritime world and the com le$ interaction between sea and land in the configuration of global olitics! ,ere, it is the %iews of Alfred Thayer &ahan on the sea as a great highway and a wide common that continue to characteri7e ca italist geo olitics! -riting toward the end of the nineteenth century &ahan ad%ocated a blue2water strategy for the D.A, em hasising the control of key sea2lanes and maritime choke oints in the administration of global hegemony! (n these three things " roduction, shi ing, and colonies# is to be found the key to much of the history, as well as of the olicy, of nations bordering the sea! &ahan suggested, continuing further that the history of the seaboard nations has been less determined by the shrewdness and foresight of go%ernments than by conditions of osition, e$tent, number and character of their eo le 6 by what are called, in a word, natural conditions! )A Nuclear wea ons and air ower notwithstanding, American im erialism is still built on its dominance of the global commons! The container, as just noted, is one conduit for the command of that wide common, so long as this is accom anied by the jurisdiction o%er coastlines! And it is here that, once again, the bo$ generates s atial effects at %arious socio2 economic and olitical scales! Gerha s the most suggesti%e instance of such s atial effects is the creation and management of ublic authority in and among major container orts! (n the second series of The -ire, the floating cor se disco%ered by &cNulty becomes the tragic marker of contiguous and com eting jurisdictions 6 &cNulty engineers the ebb and
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0! Net7, Barbed Wire: $n Ecology o" Modernity &iddletown, CT < -esleyan Dni%ersity Gress ?@@A, ! $ii! )A A!T! &ahan, The -ole o" the Sea in History, )MMA!

flow of harbour waters to locate the dum ing of the dead body beyond the county line into Baltimore Golice territory! .ergeantV Four floaterNs come back, 0awls informs :andsman, County boards are uttinN her on our side of the bridge! No fuckinN way re lies :andsman Feah, some useless fuck in our marine unit fa$ed Nem a re ort on the early morning tides and wind currents! .hows the body went into the water west of the bridge and drifted out! The ambition of modern olitical authority is to regulate and manage those %ery morning tides and wind currents 6 to somehow territorialise those flows and contain them into e$clusi%e jurisdictions! But the sha e ado ted by such ublic agencies %aries significantly! Consider the case of the Gort of New Fork Authority 8today known as the Gort Authority of New Fork and New 4ersey 2 GANFN49! 1ounded in )A?), the Gort Authority and its accom anying )*@@ s5uare mile 3istrict 2 including New Fork, Newark and 4ersey cities, as well as B@@ other smaller surrounding towns and cities 2 essentially geared toward 8literally9 bridging the ,udson 0i%er, thereby connecting New Forks international commercial hubs to those in New 4ersey and beyond! The story of this Gort Authority is, redictably, a long and com le$ one, in%ol%ing ri%alry and coo eration among enter rising engineers, olitical brokers, local go%ernment officials and businessmen!?@ 1or our ur oses, the most rele%ant oint is that out of this bi2state Authority there emerged, es ecially after -orld -ar ((, a form of munici al cor oration that su erim oses a arallel economic geogra hy onto the olitical di%ision along state2 and city2lines! The GANFN4 thus not only has res onsibilities for the management and de%elo ment of the regions major trans ort and communications networks, it also enjoys indirect re%enue raising and law2 enforcement owers akin to that of a state! /nce again, the container has layed more than a walk2on role in this roduction of regional s ace! The career of the modern container was indeed launched in A ril )A*E from the Authoritys Newark iers, and the worlds first container ort at Cli7abeth, N4 was built by the Authority! But it has since then conditioned the regions de%elo ment as the 3istrict com etes with other national and international commercial hubs! New Fork City has sur%i%ed as one of the worlds largest international gateways, but this has been at the e$ ense of its manufacturing rowess! The container, :e%inson succinctly uts it, turned the economics of location on its head! "By the )AJ@s# a com any could re lace its crowded, multistory lant in Brooklyn or &anhattan with a modern, single2story factory in New 4ersey or Gennsyl%ania, could enjoy lower ta$es and electricity costs at its new home, and could send a container of goods to Gort Cli7abeth for a fraction of the cost of a lant in &anhattan or Brooklyn! This is e$actly what occurred< while industry fled the city, MB ercent of the manufacturing jobs that left New Fork between )AE) and )AJE ended u no further away than Gennsyl%ania, u state New Fork, or Connecticut!?) 1ar from being a urely economic or ragmatic decision dri%en by market forces, the relocation of manufacturing from New Fork City to its hinterlands was the roduct of s ecific decisions taken by a named olitical authority, the GANFN4! The container was on this account neither a merely assi%e roduct of ine%itable economic change,
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Told in great detail by 4ames -! 3oig in his Empire on the H+dson: Entreprene+rial .ision and &olitical &ower at the &ort o" *ew /or! $+thority 8New Fork, NF< Columbia Dni%ersity Gress, ?@@)9 ?) :e%inson, The Bo$, ! AA!

nor a technological dri%er of such transformation< it embodied the olitical agency aimed at re2orienting and re2scaling the NewFork2New 4ersey region from a national manufacturing center into a global commercial and trans ort hub! &ahans natural conditions of the seaboard nation ha%e certainly been e$ loited by the GANFN4 in ursuing a larger share of global oceanic trade! But such a blue water strategy has always o erated in conjunction with land2based economic infrastructures such as railways and motorways, as well as territorial olitical agencies like the GANFN4! ?? (n this res ect, the container acts as a material force that is simultaneously an object of 0awls morning tides and wind currents as it is a subject of an organi7ation of s ace that delineates a Gort Authority jurisdiction from that of the City! &I*agine "e+r,ar) on the !ocks' (n their recent com ilation of essays on new materialisms, 3iana Coole and .amantha 1rost urge us to concei%e of matter as ossessing its own modes of self2 transformation, self2organi7ation and directness, and thus no longer asssi%e or inert! They encourage social theorists to encom ass the %ital ower of things and to recognise that the human s ecies is being relocated within a natural en%ironment whose material forces themsel%es manifest certain agentic ca acities and in which the domain of unintended or unantici ated effects is considerably broadened!?B (%e suggested in this essay that the container manifests recisely these agentic ca acities in regard to world olitics, but that in order to register its ower we need to look at the world from the ers ecti%e of a longshoreman like 1rank .obotka 6 to look inside the bo$! 1or in the fifth e isode of the second series of The Wire, as Bunk and Beadie 0ussell follow a lead regarding the com uter system on the waterfront, .obotka discloses his mode for dealing with nature! (nformation technology a ears here, as managers like it, to master nature in a neutral, measureable and efficient way! But .obotka knows better 6 he a reciates how information technologies can both mani ualte and be mani ulated by nature 8including men9! Bunk< ,e was sayinN that the com uter makes it hard to steal off the docks! .obotka< 3id our illustrious ort manager tell you that right now, we got )E@ bo$es missing off the Gata sco terminal alone+ /r the last time we in%entoried the truck
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(n both NF2N4 and :!A!2:B, railroad ser%ice has been a critical com onent in the e$ ansion of container ser%ice and therefore in the ability of these regions to maintain %iable orts, with their im act on economic de%elo ment in the wider regions! (n the New Fork area, as described earlier, rail access to the iers was an im ortant factor in the debates surrounding the creation of the Gort Authority! (t was also crucial in the ability of the Gort agency in recent decades to e$ and the reach of its container ser%ice beyond local markets! Trucks deli%ered containers from customers within ?@@2B@@ miles of the ortT but the railroad network e$tended across the country and reached im ortant mid2western markets essential to the orts continued growth! By the )AM@s, the freight rail lines were a major factor in gathering and distributing freight in containers across the country! 0ehabilitated rail lines ran within a few miles of the Newark and Cli7abeth iersT and the GA had to in%est in rehabilitating decre it local links to the iers! .te%en G! Crie et al! Americas :eading (nternational Trade Centers and Their Cntre reneurial Agencies< Challenges and .trategies in the New Fork and :os Angeles 0egions in 3a%id ,alle and Andrew Be%eridge 8eds9 *ew /or! and Los $ngeles: The 'ncertain #+t+re 8New Fork< /$ford Dni%ersity Gress, ?@)?9!
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3iana Coole and .amantha 1rost 8eds9, *ew Materialisms: 0ntology, $gency, and &olitics 83urham and :ondon< 3uke Dni%ersity ress, ?@)@9, !)@!

chassis, we came u B@@ light+ No, ( su ose not, thatNs management for ya! Bunk< )E@, huh+ .obotka< Not that all of them are stolen! NCause you can lose a can by accident, no roblem! 1or one thing, these handhelds use radio wa%es! And with all the e5ui ment and container stacks out there, sometimes them wa%es get knocked down! That ha ens, a can donNt get entered! /r, just as easy, a checker makes the wrong entry! Cither Ncause heNs la7y, heNs slo y, or heNs still shitfaced from the night before! /r, sim ler than that, you got fat fingers, no offense, so imagine 1ebruary on the docks! FouNre wearing Korte$ glo%es, tryinN to unch numbers on that thing! 0ussell< FouNre sayinN thatNs what ha ened to the can with the girls in it+ .obotka< Beadie, darlinN, ( donNt know what ha ened there! (Nm just sayinN if you go by the com uter, it might look like thereNs some kinda dirt goinN down, when itNs really just a glitch in the system! Bunk< The customs seal was broke on that bo$! .houldnNt that get noticed+ .obotka< FouNre off2loading a shi the si7e of a small town, you might notice a broke seal, you might not! :ook, you wanna kee ullinN our chain, you can! But it ainNt like itNs just that one bo$ that went missing! -e lose them son2bitches all the time! Bunks conclusion o%er this e$change is also incisi%e TheyNre laying us he tells Beadie on lea%ing the docks! Clearly, hes referring to .obotka and his accom lices, but the container is also a rotagonist in this game! As (%e tried to indicate with reference to %arious ressing issues in world olitics, the bo$ generates di%erse s atial effects on different scales! &aterialist a roaches to international relations offer a better gras of these s atial effects as they encom ass not just narrowly inter2 subjecti%e relations, but the interaction 6 or social metabolism 2 between human subjects and our natural en%ironment, including of course things and matter! But the materialism ( ha%e been de loying is a historical2geogra hical materialism! /ne that acknowledges the emergent owers, %ital forces and circulating affect of ersons, things and matter, yet also em hasises the causal hierarchies and asymmetrical relations that issue from such interactions! Com le$ rocesses like Arctic thaw or the roduction of regions are unctuated by structural transformations and go%erned by une5ual ower relations among different social and natural agents< com le$ feedback loo s certainly deli%er contingent and une$ ected effects, but these are always conditioned by owerful interests and forces, rinci ally dri%en by the ca italist %alorisation of nature! Contingency after all resu oses a structure! :ike Bunk and .obotka, a historical2geogra hical materialism recognises that human and nonhuman forces lay an interacti%e role in social life 6 that cans get lost because sometimes the wa%es get knocked down or because fat fingers and Korte$ glo%es get in the way of efficiently shifting bo$es in North Atlantic winter! (ts a materialism which sim ly insists that the rules of the game are sha ed by changing balance of forces and shar ine5ualities of ower which 6 no matter the season or the technology em loyed 6 are stacked in fa%our of those already ri%ileged!