Automated infrastructure: COVID-19 and the shifting geographies of supply chain capitalism

Abstract

In recent years, geographers have evinced how infrastructure constitutes the bedrock of supply chain capitalism and its oppressions. This article interrogates how advanced automation - comprising robotics, artificial intelligence and software - is poised to politicize this infrastructural space further on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reflecting on COVID-19 developments, the article shows how logistics is turning to advanced automation to drive productivity outside labour, spur self-service consumption through digital technologies and contest labour's future. As automated infrastructure threatens to take hold, a configuration of exchange that increasingly places labour, but not profits, outside of capital's circulations will need to be challenged.