Necrocapitalist networks: COVID-19 and the ‘dark side’ of economic geography

Abstract

The economic fallout from COVID-19 has precipitated a crisis in global supply chains. The lockdown of consumers worldwide has triggered a fall in demand that has so far led to the dismissal of up to one-third of Cambodia’s garment sector workforce. Though the pandemic is exceptional, this is a crisis rooted in the exemplary rather than extraordinary hyper-precarity of workers in global industry. Here, I argue that COVID-19 spotlights the elusive ‘dark sides’ of global production in economic geography, revealing the necrocapitalist logics of supply chains.