Читать книгу Sinews of War and Trade - Laleh Khalili - Страница 9

David Hansen-Miller planted the seeds of this project when I was flailing for something totally new, something really different, something less bloody and grim to research after my counterinsurgency project had wound down (and ‘beaches and bars in Beirut’ wasn’t cutting it as a long-term proposition). He also hooked me up with the lovely people at the International Transport Workers’ Federation, and especially Jeremy Anderson, without whom this project would not have gotten off the ground. Rafeef Ziadah, Charmaine Chua, Deb Cowen, and Katy Fox-Hodess have been fellow travellers from the first, their intellectual companionship all the more fabulous for all of them being such kickass women. Rafeef in particular has been a marvellous colleague and sounding board and friend throughout. I am grateful to Fahad Bishara, Rosie Bsheer, John Chalcraft, Neve Gordon, Toby Craig Jones, Johan Mathew, Catherine Rottenberg, and Al Withrow for reading the whole manuscript or substantial portions thereof and for giving exact and exacting, lucid, constructive feedback. John Gall made me re-write the introduction to appeal to an audience beyond academia. I am humbled by their patience, their generosity and their friendship.

In the glorious three years I set aside to be a student in a field I initially knew so little about, I visited a great many places and was aided by a great many people. Foremost among them were the officers and crew of the two CMA CGM container ships on which I travelled, Corte Real in February 2015 and Callisto in August 2016. The seafarers were, to a person, open, thoughtful, astute, patient, and immensely helpful in answering all my random questions and explaining the details of shipping work. Their insights about the ports we visited, about work aboard ships, about their lives and feelings at sea and at home, all flow through the veins of this book, even if I have not named them here, even in places where the subject or the time period seemingly doesn’t have anything to do with them. I also want to thank Horatio Clare, whose Financial Times piece published in advance of his beautiful Down to the Sea in Ships, made me realise I could travel on freighters as a passenger.

On shore, numerous lovely people gave of their time for interviews or port tours or introduced me to people they knew far away from London. Some of these interviews and visits were foundational or transformative for my thinking and this project. I especially want to thank Jairus Banaji (for perspicacious conversations and very useful introductions in Mumbai); Fahad Bishara (for sharing his Arabic language sources and scanning books and chapters and sending them along with the kind of generosity with one’s precious research materials I have rarely seen in the academy, and also for his stern corrections of immensely embarrassing errors in the first draft of the manuscript); Captain Roy Facey (who taught me many things about Aden and about the business of shipping); Lamya Harub (for introducing me to so many crucial people in Oman); Antony Joseph (of the Forward Seamen’s Union of India for an unforgettable introduction to and hospitality in Kerala); Simeon Kerr (for imparting his incisive insights in Dubai); Ryan Kim (for enlightening conversations about migrants’ rights in Manila); Bilal Malkawi (of ITF Middle East, for sharing his ideas and stories); Munzir Naqvi (for being such a great tour guide in Mumbai); Keith Nutall (then of Gulftainer, for a foundational visit to the port of Khor Fakkan); Vicente Rafael (for brilliant introductions in Manila); and Maria Rashid (for setting up such a productive interview for me in Karachi). Thank you to Sebastian Budgen for his terse emails, endless (and endlessly useful) references, and for wanting this book in the first place. Thanks are due to Eseld Imms for the amazing maps she has created for this book and for the website named after it. I am so impressed with the care and scrupulousness of my amazing copyeditor, Sarah Grey, and the rest of the wonderful Verso staff – especially Duncan Ranslem – for their efficiency and professionalism (and sense of humour).

Also thanks to the archivists at American University of Beirut, the British Petroleum archives, Durham University Archives, Georgetown University Archives, Imperial War Museum, the India Office Records, Liverpool Maritime Museum, London Metropolitan Archives, National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the UK and US National Archives, the Trades Union Congress Archives at Warwick University; and the librarians and archivists at the American University of Beirut and the British Library. I could not quite believe it when the Economic and Social Research Council of Britain decided to fund this project and the delightful and enlightening fieldtrips, container ship journeys, and archival visits it entailed (ES/L002833/1). For that, I thank them. My immense gratitude to colleagues at my former employer, SOAS University of London, and especially Charles Tripp, for their generosity in allowing me such a long time away from the quotidian business of the Department. I have been generously invited to give talks at many places and hosted by many brilliant colleagues and friends. Your questioning, prodding, suggestions, criticisms, and conversations over wine or coffee or meals have sharpened my arguments here. I hope you recognise your intellectual contributions.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the people who make my extra-academic life a feast and therefore hospitable to teaching, research and writing, which, no matter how pleasurable, are after all work. Love and gratitude to Clare, Catherine and Neve, Katharine (and the B&M posse) in London, Kris in Washington, DC and Bret in Atlanta, Lisa Hajjar, Sonya Knox and the whole of the Beirut gang (in Lebanon and in exile), and last and definitely not least the original NYC gang – Leslie and Akiva, Jessica and Colin, Geoff and Alex, Jason and Nikki, Tanisha, and Heather – for the habits of friendship, conviviality, and commensality all through the decades. May and Pablo only get more hilarious, creative, brilliant, engaged and engaging, and a joy to be around the older they get. They have nothing to do with this project and that is just as it should be. And thank you Al, my ‘F1’, for your immense love and affection, magical companionship and fabulous storytelling, restorative breakfasts and salades niçoise, goofy jokes and terrible singing, and especially for the ridiculous amounts of fun we have.