Abstract
This chapter is an exploration of the logistical space of Haldia, the location of Kolkata Port Trust’s deep-sea dock, and a hub of industries, infrastructural, and logistical networks, connected by road, river, and rail transport. I seek to understand how logistics and labour create space. Haldia continues to see large-scale migration and displacement, owing to both the construction of the dock and the promise of a resurgent economy. Based on ten months of ethnography, I detail the flourishing of an ‘other’ logistics in Haldia, one based in modes of survival and hustling that exist in the shadow of the city’s official logistical activities. Its central actors are marginal women, and its objects, the key cargo of Haldia port: coal.
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Notes
- 1.
Then called Calcutta, following the British name for West Bengal’s capital, but in 2001, it was changed to the Bengali name, Kolkata. The Calcutta Port Trust (CPT) is now called the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT).
- 2.
ICARE runs Haldia Institute of Technology, Haldia Institute of Nursing Science, Dr B C Roy Memorial Hospital, Research and Development Centre, Vidyasagar Primary Teachers’ Training Institute, Haldia School of Languages, Haldia Institute of Management, Haldia Institute of Health Science, Institute of Education, Haldia Law College , Global Institute of Science and Technology, Haldia Institute of Dental Science and Research, Haldia Institute of Maritime Studies and Research, and so on.
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Acknowledgement
I gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Suman Nath, Ananya Chatterjee, and Dipyaman Adhikary in carrying out the fieldwork. Uttam Chakraborty and Sk. Mujaffar were generous with their time, willingness to share experiences, information, and resources. Rupak Goswami helped immensely in the development of the argument. The participants in the Logistical Worlds project have listened patiently to the various versions of this paper and contributed to its present form.
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Biswas, S. (2018). Haldia: Logistics and Its Other(s). In: Neilson, B., Rossiter, N., Samaddar, R. (eds) Logistical Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8333-4_5
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