Key insights
From pandemic experience at Australia’s largest industrial complex, Port Kembla, five key themes warranting geographical analysis arise in light of coronavirus: disruptions to global supply chains; domestic industrial capacity and the future of manufacturing; biosecuring industrial sites; precarious work; and vernacular emergency response capacities within industrial communities. Calls for reinvigorated domestic manufacturing conceal the degree to which industrial landscapes are contested, already entwined in geometries of power.
1 INTRODUCTION
On 5 April 2020, the cruise ship Ruby Princess moored at Port Kembla, 70 kilometres south of Sydney. A fortnight earlier, the ship had arrived at Circular Quay in Sydney Harbour. Despite some passengers displaying symptoms and awaiting…