This lecture examined how the Arabian Peninsula, with its strategic location at the intersection of global trade routes, has become a key site for the development of transport infrastructures and the consolidation of logistical hierarchies. These logistical hierarchies are not only economic, but also political and social, as they shape the movement of people and goods and reinforce pre-existing regional power dynamics.
Dr. Rafeef Ziadah, highlights the intersection of such logistical hierarchies with militarism, as the Arabian Peninsula has become a site for the deployment of military forces and the establishment of military bases, which are often intertwined with the development of logistical infrastructure, such as maritime ports. The analysis focuses on possibilities of resistance, including workers‘ strikes, protests, and grassroots campaigns for human rights. The lecture thus emphasises the ways in which these resistance movements challenge and disrupt not only logistical hierarchies but also the militarisation of the broader region.
This event is part of the ALMA lecture series “Postcolonial Hierarchies and their Contestation from the Global South” organized by the Arnold Bergstraesser Institut (ABI) in cooperation with its partners of the Postcolonial Hierarchies Network, as well as the Colloquium Politicum and the Global Studies Programme at the University of Freiburg.
