Automated infrastructure: COVID-19 and the shifting geographies of supply chain capitalism. (April 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lin, Weiqiang
• Is Part Of: Progress in human geography. Volume 46:Number 2(2022)
• Page Start: 463
• Page End: 483
• Publication Date: 2022-04
• Subjects: automation -- COVID-19 -- digital technologies -- labour -- logistics -- infrastructure -- supply chain capitalism; Human geography -- Periodicals; 304.2
• DOI: 10.1177/03091325211038718
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0309-1325

Abstract

In recent years, geographers have evinced how infrastructure constitutes the bedrock of supply chain capitalism and its oppressions. This article interrogates how advanced automation – comprising robotics, artificial intelligence and software – is poised to politicize this infrastructural space further on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reflecting on COVID-19 developments, the article shows how logistics is turning to advanced automation to drive productivity outside labour, spur self-service consumption through digital technologies and contest labour's future. As automated infrastructure threatens to take hold, a configuration of exchange that increasingly places labour, but not profits, outside of capital's circulations will need to be challenged