Deconstructing the model, rethinking the port: Critical geographies of global logistics

Abstract

With the introduction of the container, ports have become pivotal nodes of global logistics. Consequently, their development has followed a model based on the continuous spatial expansion of port areas, infrastructural gigantism, and inter-port competition. This model, which has come to constitute the dominant discursive framework for interpreting port development, now shows multiple fractures, stemming from ongoing transformations in globalisation, mounting environmental and territorial challenges, and increasingly frequent conflicts with local communities. These dynamics legitimate a critical reexamination of the relationship between ports, cities, and global logistics. Ports remain relevant infrastructures from a socio-economic standpoint. Yet their development must be re-situated within an urban-territorial perspective that conceives the port-city as a socio-ecological assemblage. The challenge is not merely infrastructural but ontological: to redefine what a port is, what purposes it serves, and for whom it should function.