Fantasies of Logistics in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Logistics is a form of calculative reasoning and set of material practices framed by the fantasy of perpetual, seamless circulation. This fantasy is built on ideas of universal connection and fungibility that sit beyond the teeming messiness of lived, unpacified life. The fantasy of connection is, however, continually haunted by an anxiety that an irruption of liveliness will disrupt material flows and expectations of plenitude. In this chapter, we draw on two case studies of food disruption from Aotearoa New Zealand—pork and flour—to interrogate these promises. The two cases take the form of vignettes when the regular operation of logistics relationships was in some way affected by the COVID-19 response of the Aotearoa New Zealand government and other actors. We argue that the character and impact of the disruption experienced in each case study are specific to its material and cultural particularities and that the particularities of disruption themselves provide a valuable analytical entry point for understanding the fragility and contingency of logistics. This leads us to show that the critical analysis of logistics relationships needs to move beyond a mirroring of claims to universality and is more insightful when it is attentive to the specific materialities of things and their liveliness.