Disrupting the Rhythms of Violence: Anti‐port Protests in the City of Buenaventura

Alke Jenss

doi:10.1111/1758-5899.12878

Abstract

AbstractThis contribution draws on rhythmanalysis and the political economy of assemblage to provide a framework for understanding the productive spatio‐temporal effects of physical violence on urban rhythms. The paper explores how Buenaventura, Colombia's biggest port city, is transformed both by the growth in container turnover, and through recurring, spatial and temporal practices of violence. What role does violence play in the relation between trade‐driven acceleration through the port, and the aquatic, tidal rhythm that historically shaped the city? The contribution mobilizes the notion of disruption to analyse the frictions emerging between infrastructural nodes of acceleration, inhabitants’ movements, and urban space. I argue that while recurring violence provides urban rhythm itself, social movements may employ the temporal instrument of disruption as a means both of political articulation and transformation within the logics of accelerated accumulation and in a context marked by violent rhythms and forced mobility.

Highlights

This contribution draws on rhythmanalysis and the political economy of assemblage to provide a framework for understanding the productive spatio-temporal effects of physical violence on urban rhythms
Policy measures must be planned with the participation of people experiencing the effects of physical violence
The disruption of trade flows through strikes can illustrate how interwoven logistics workplaces and their surrounding cities are

Summary

Global Policy

Suggested Citation: Jenss, Alke (2020) : Disrupting the Rhythms of Violence: Anti‐port Protests in the City of Buenaventura, Global Policy, ISSN 1758-5899, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, Vol 12, Iss. S2, pp. Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. Disrupting the Rhythms of Violence: Anti-port Protests in the City of Buenaventura

Rhythm and temporal dimensions of violence

Conclusion

Findings

Author Information