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SUMMARY:THIS SEMINAR WILL BE RESCHEDULED DUE TO UCU STRIKE ACTION When the
  future hits the ground: navigating logistical ruins on the Black Sea.  - 
 Dr Evelina Gambino
DTSTART:20230210T124500Z
DTEND:20230210T140000Z
UID:TALK194455@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Speaker to be confirmed
DESCRIPTION:In the past decade\, the coastal village of Anaklia in West Ge
 orgia has been at the centre of different waves of investment intended to 
 turn it into a logistics hub\, envisaged as the key to a future of global 
 connections for the entire country. To this day\, none of these projects h
 ave materialised\, leaving the village and its inhabitants to deal with th
 e consequences of these multiple failures. During my first visit in Anakli
 a in 2017\, I found the village filled with the ruins of a failed attempt 
 to build a futuristic city named Lazika. At that time\, a new project was 
 about to begin\, which included the construction of a deep sea port\, a fr
 ee industrial zone and a privately-owned smart city. In 2020\, these lates
 t developments were halted and\, while Anaklia’s future remains out of s
 ight\, the ruins dotting the village have multiplied. The unfinished infra
 structural efforts that have invested the village have left longstanding m
 arks not only on its landscape but on the socio-economic relations amongst
  those who inhabit it. In the wake of the these failed projects\, I figure
  Anaklia as simultaneously an index and a product of the various processes
  that are brought together in the reproduction of what I call the “logis
 tical future”. By interrogating ethnographically the promises attached t
 o Anaklia’s development\, in this presentation I show how\, rather than 
 a smooth horizon of prosperity the logistical future is instead a much mur
 kier and multilayered temporal orientation\, one that is sustained by copi
 ous amounts of reproductive labour performed by all manners of actors. Cru
 cially\, what I show is that the logistical future is constantly brokering
  different forms of failure. Extending far beyond Georgia\, this temporal 
 horizon is enveloping increasingly more locations on the route of the New 
 Silk Road. This presentation\, thus\, advances a situated perspective to t
 he study of global logistics aimed at showing the awkward and often violen
 t ways in which developmental promises of logistics hit the diverse ground
 s they cross. 
LOCATION:Seminar Room\, Department of Geography
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