“The ships, the trucks, the loading docks are containers of immiserated labor—and therefore, containers of revolutionary potential.”
In a new essay published in Places Journal, Charmaine Chua challenges us to reconsider the ordinary logistics landscapes that surround us. The concrete warehouses lining our freeways, she argues, are not merely sites of storage but infrastructures of capture—of markets, labor, and increasingly, people detained through expanding immigration enforcement. Drawing connections between global supply chains and carceral systems, the essay examines how vacant warehouses are being repurposed into massive detention facilities. At the same time, Chua points to the latent possibilities within these systems, and ultimately calls for collective action to disrupt and dismantle what she describes as a “disappearing machine.”
Read the entire essay, "The Warehouse, in Plain Sight," here!