Digital economy; Logistics; Distribution centres; Amazon.com; Circulation; ICT
Résumé :
[en] The digital economy is a catalyst for the circulation of people, goods and information, affecting both urban and non-urban realms. This chapter uses the empirical case of Amazon.com to discuss the digital and physical arrangement of production, labour, distribution, advertising, purchasing, and consumption as a means of creating particular spaces of politics. What started as mail order retail for books about 20 years ago can now be understood as an all-encompassing platform for performing a variety of socio-economic practices. These practices evolve from disruptive innovation and are backed by venture capital as well as an aggressive market strategy, leading to a compartmentalized organisation of value chains. The related implications on place, space and territory reveal a certain “logics of dislocation” (Barnes 1996), creating particular spaces of circulation both in urban centres and peripheries. The abstract system’s imperative not only steers the orchestration of the firm’s network but also, given its hegemony in online-markets, threatens to assume an almost totalitarian form. It thus also performs as a powerful agent of policy-making. Against this background, the chapter explores the spaces of circulation and related politics that are produced and reproduced by Amazon.com.
Disciplines :
Geographie humaine & démographie
Auteur, co-auteur :
HESSE, Markus ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education (FLSHASE) > Identités, Politiques, Sociétés, Espaces (IPSE)
Co-auteurs externes :
no
Langue du document :
Anglais
Titre :
The logics and politics of circulation: exploring the urban and non-urban spaces of Amazon.com
Date de publication/diffusion :
avril 2018
Titre de l'ouvrage principal :
The Routledge International Handbook on Spaces of Urban Politics
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