FASS Brown Bag Seminar by Dr Canay Özden-Schilling | This Logistical Life: Port Cities and Capitalism as We Know It

Dear all,

You are cordially invited to the fourth session of the FASS Brown Bag Seminar Series in Semester 1 of AY24/25. Dr Canay Özden-Schilling (NUS Sociology and Anthropology) will be presenting on “This Logistical Life: Port Cities and Capitalism as We Know It”.

Date: 7 Nov, 12pm – 1pm
Register: Zoom

This Logistical Life: Port Cities and Capitalism as We Know It
Maritime shipping is key to capitalism as we know it. With its tremendous recent scaling, it has helped usher in a mode of global business where value is overwhelmingly derived from managing supply chains. But maritime shipping is as local as it is global. For it to be the planetary network it is, many laborers in port cities must mediate the diverse sociocultural circumstances of manufacturers, bureaucrats, and seaport administrators worldwide. This talk explores the cultural life of logistics in port cities. It is anchored in Mersin, a port city on the Eastern Mediterranean, host to a Singaporean-administered up-and-coming seaport.

Dr. Canay Özden-Schilling is an anthropologist of capitalism, technology, and infrastructures, with past and ongoing research projects on markets of electricity and global port logistics. Her current book-length project explores the cultural life of maritime shipping, as seen from the port cities of Mersin (Turkey) and Singapore.