Necropolitical Zones in the Jungle : Commodity Flows, Logistic Infrastructures, and Spatial Justice in the Amazon

Abstract

This article examines how the planetary circulation of commodities produces new regimes of spatial injustice and disposability, focusing on the Amazonian port city of Barcarena, Brazil. Situating its analysis within critical urban studies, it introduces the concept of necropolitical zones - territories where exposure to death is not accidental but structurally organised through infrastructures, regulations, and economic imperatives. Drawing on Achille Mbembe’s notion of necropolitics, as well as frameworks from environmental humanities and logistics urbanism, the article traces the conceptual evolution of the “zone” from technological and critical to sacrifice and necropolitical forms. This genealogy reveals how global supply chains transform landscapes into operational infrastructures of extraction and exposure. Through a combined methodology of theoretical analysis and critical cartography, the study maps the spatial evolution of Barcarena over three decades, correlating industrial expansion, residential sprawl, and environmental degradation. Recurrent industrial accidents - chemical leaks, tailings spills, and toxic contamination - illustrate the systemic nature of risk and the institutionalised indifference that sustains extractivist urbanisation. The mapping approach highlights how these transformations materialise the logic of necropolitical planning, where economic imperatives outweigh the protection of life and environment. In its final section, the article explores how architecture and territorial practice can act as forms of ethical and political repair. By reinterpreting mapping as a tool of visibility and care, it proposes an architectural approach attentive to vulnerability, coexistence, and the relational ecologies of the Amazon. Ultimately, it argues for the recognition of Amazonian urban-diversity as a non-hierarchical framework for reimagining coexistence and spatial justice within the damaged landscapes of the Capitalocene.