Distribution, dis-sumption and dis-appointment: The negative geographies of city logistics

Abstract

Critical approaches to logistics, in dialogue with geography and related disciplines, have exposed the turbulence behind apparently seamless transnational circulations of stuff. As everyday urban life becomes increasingly structured through logistical practices and expectations which imbricate consumption and distribution, now is an appropriate moment to take stock of these dialogues. Reviewing them, the article identifies three spatial assumptions – peripheral geographies, seamless consumption, forward motion – proposing that they express an additive, forward-leaning representation of logistics. In response, it draws upon debates on ‘negativity’ to suggest geographers pay greater attention to logistics’ negative spaces (voids), affects (dis-appointments) and mobilities (reversals).