Ports, Citizens and Frictions: Emergent Eco-territorialities on ContestedPorts

Abstract

This article focuses on the conflictual relationships between citizens and ports. It critically engages with logistics, challenging positivist views of the port growth as ‘business as usual’. I argue that logistical trends such as naval gigantism and the concentration of power in the shipping industry are increasingly influencing ports’ decisions, creating the conditions for frictions between ports and cities.I interrogate the relationships between the inexorable growth of ports and the multidimension character of arising frictions, highlightingtheir potential as deterritorialising forces. I argue that the combination of increasing frictions and expanding perceptions of the climate crisis is triggering social mobilization against imposed port expansion. Such mobilizations are more than counter-logistic actions –they also generate proposals for new forms of coexistence between port and city, based on the direct experience of socio-environmental vulnerability.Utilising the content of the online platform ContestedPorts, I frame arguments that support social mobilization, detecting priorities and values that define new perspectives on social metabolisms and emergent forms of eco-territoriality.