Articles

“The broker"

History and Anthropology (2022) 33:2, 196-201, DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2022.2066095

An emphasis on flow and endless accumulation has been central to the understandings of contemporary maritime capitalism. This form of accumulation has been enabled by structures of violence and exploitation wrought through desires of ever-bigger and ever-faster within the world of global shipping. But flow is only part of this story, mobility at sea is always interrupted, sticky and delayed. Maritime journeys are constituted by chokepoints, drift, and stuckness and are moments of anxiety and peril for a variety of actors from seafarers to policy makers whose projects seek to overcome these blockages in order to make possible more efficient and more profitable forms of circulation. For others, interruptions point to possibility. Here, I emphasize that for ‘maritime figures’ like insurance brokers, and seafarers, interruptions are part of everyday life at sea: a life constituted through an admixture of peril and possibility.

“Ambergris, Livestock, and Oil: Port-making as Chokepoint Making in the Red Sea”

Ethnos, (2020) DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2019.1696861

Either imagined as spaces of cosmopolitan circulation and exchange or mechanised logistics hubs, ports are central sites to theorise the historical origins of capitalism and its contemporary manifestations and futures. We know little, however, of the processes through which ports come into being and the varied ways in which they sustain their centrality. Locating itself in three port-cities along the maritime chokepoint of the Bab-el-Mandeb and focusing on the circulation and capture of objects as disparate as ambergris, goats, and oil, this article emphasises how port making (and unmaking), through the channeling of circulation, entails the transformation of littoral spaces into chokepoints – nodes of circulation, but equally importantly of capture and constriction. A focus on port-making as chokepoint making renders in active voice the confluence of forces, from ecological to geopolitical, that give rise to ports as specific loci of regulatory powers as well the contingency and fragility of place-making.

“Chokepoints: Anthropologies of the Constricted Contemporary”

Ethnos, (2020), DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2019.1696862. Co-authored with Ashley Carse, Townsend Middleton, Jason Cons, Jatin Dua, Gabriela Valdivia & Elizabeth Cullen Dunn

This article develops an anthropology of chokepoints: sites that constrict or ‘choke’ the flows of resources, information, and bodies upon which contemporary life depends. We argue that an ethnographic and analytical focus on chokepoints – ports, canals, tunnels, pipelines, transit corridors, and more – recasts longstanding anthropological concerns with the character and consequences of global circulation or ‘flow’. Chokepoints, we argue, are zones of operative paradox – where increased connectivity slows movement down; where the marginal become powerful; where local activities have distributed effects. Studied ethnographically, chokepoints reveal worlds animated neither by rapid circulation nor complete blockage, but by the dynamics of constriction and traffic. We approach the chokepoint as a site, an instrumental concept, and an analytic for exploring the constricted contemporary. Thinking with and through these choked arteries, we ask: What do chokepoints do? How? When? For whom? We conclude by offering eight dimensions of chokepoints as entry points for research.

“The abandoned seafarer: Networks of care and capture in the global shipping economy”

History and Anthropology (2019) 30:5, 497-502, DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2019.1638776

Based on ethnographic research onboard cargo ships and ashore at Mission to Seafarers (MtS) and other seafarer clubs this essay emphasizes the centrality of care and capture in shaping the global shipping economy. Drawing insights from an anthropological archive of capture, this essay highlights the multi-faceted ways in which care and capture define maritime labour on land and sea and where the ultimate form of captivity is abandonment.

“Captivity: A Provocation”

Public Culture (2018) 30 (1): 3–18. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-4189131. Co-authored with Kevin Lewis O’Neill

“Hijacked: Piracy and Economies of Protection in the Western Indian Ocean”

Comparative Studies in Society and History (2019) 61(3), 479-507. doi:10.1017/S0010417519000215

From 2007–2012, a dramatic upsurge in maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia captivated global attention. Over three hundred merchant vessels and some three thousand seafarers were held hostage with ransom amounts ranging from $200,000 to $10 million being paid to release these ships. Somali piracy operated exclusively on a kidnap-and-ransom model with crew, cargo, and ship held captive until a ransom was secured. Ransom, unlike theft or seizure, requires willing parties and systems of exchange. Ransom economies, therefore, bring together disparate actors and make visible the centrality of protection as a mode of accumulation and jurisdiction. As an analytic, this article proposes an anthropology of protection to undercut divides between legality and illegality, trade and finance, piracy and counter piracy. It argues that protection is key to apprehending processes of mobility and interruption central to global capitalism.

“Dhow Encounters”

Transition Afro-Asian Worlds (2016), 112 pp. 49-59

Somali pirates routinely capture Indian motorized sailing vessels (dhows) as merchants travel from ports in Western India to Somalia. They capture dhows and their crews not for ransom but rather to traverse the Indian Ocean in search of bigger game: cargo vessels. During these intimate encounters between pirates and crewmen, the idioms of hospitality (and hostility) provide a window onto captivity as mediated forms of co-habitation.

“Chokepoints and Corridors: Ordering Maritime in the Western Indian Ocean”

X-Border Project – RVI (2021)

Chokepoints and Corridors: Ordering Maritime Space in the Western Indian Ocean

In the Horn of Africa there is a dynamic interplay between land and sea that has shaped political, economic and social relationships. In the Horn of Africa there is a dynamic interplay between land and sea that has shaped political, economic and social relationships. Historical and contemporary instances of piracy in the Western Indian Ocean, at different times, precipitated a securitization of this maritime space and made visible the economic and political connections that tie sea to land. These events also reveal the many locations and actors involved in the ordering and reordering of maritime space. This report examines the ‘chokepoints and corridors’ of the Western Indian Ocean, particularly their influence on landed authority in the Horn of Africa. It argues that maritime spaces— zones of connection and activity (commercial and cultural)—should be placed at the centre of our understanding of the region, rather than seen simply as empty areas relevant only for transit.

“Bosaso and the Gulf of Aden: Changing Dynamics of a Land-Sea Network”

X-Border Project – RVI (2020) Co-authored with Abdideeq Warsame & Ahmed Shire

This report examines the relationship between modern-day Puntland, a semi-autonomous region of north-east Somalia, Yemen and the wider Gulf region. It focuses on the port city of Bosaso, which, historically, built its economic fortunes on easy access to the sea lanes of the Gulf of Aden and markets of the Arabian Peninsula. However, the dynamics of this maritime space are not static and have shifted according to the changing security and economic dynamics of a region at the centre of larger geopolitical processes, including the war in Yemen. In amongst these changes, Bosaso’s future now seems less certain.