Domesticating logistical futures

A grounded account of failure

Bibliographic Data

ID4476348
AuthorsEvelina Gambino (0000-0001-6651-6104, University of Cambridge, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume43
Issue1
Pages181-204
Publication date2025-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/02637758241274643
OpenAlexW4403462337
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited62

The infrastructures of global logistics are hailed as developmental solutions for countries previously peripheral to global trade routes. Building on ethnographic fieldwork performed in the village of Anaklia, West Georgia, this article proposes a grounded analysis of this developmental promise. It does so by focusing on the attempted construction and failure of a deep-sea port that was set to turn the village into a logistics hub part of the Belt and Road Initiative. In dialogue with ethnographic accounts of infrastructural failure and feminist approaches to the study of global circulation, this article outlines the villager's efforts to "domesticate" the promise of prosperity attached to the port, mapping how the intimate spaces of the village have been transformed by the mercurial promise attached to Anaklia Port. In the aftermath of the project's failure, this article shows the mark that the projected logistical future has left on the village's economy and life. In doing so, it sheds light on the variegated impacts that logistical projects leave behind, even when they remain unfinished

Business · Futures contract · Grounded theory · Qualitative research · Social science · Sociology · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Finance

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