UPCOMING SEMINAR

Micrologistics: Explorations of small-scale consumption in Global South cities

Presenter: Anna Pertiera & Tingting Liu

Discussant: David Goodman Chair: Louise Crabtree Hayes

Date & Time: 2 April 2026 | 11:30am - 1:00pm

Room: PS-EA.G.27 Parramatta South Campus

Abstract

In this presentation, we propose the concept of micrologistics to capture several dimensions of trade and consumption that we find to be especially prevalent in Global South contexts. Micrologistics refers to fragmented, small-scale, and localised practices that move goods from large supply chains into everyday consumption, operating as a sub-layer of global logistics infrastructures that link macro-scale distribution systems to household-level economic life. ‘Micrologistics’ captures the dense networks of interpersonal transactions, informal coordination, and localised delivery practices that make global commerce operational at the level of everyday life.

We draw on a collaborative project first launched at ICS in 2019: New Consumers in the Global South, featuring fieldwork in Guangzhou, Metro Manila, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro, where we observed how digital platforms increasingly rely on the embodied practices and social networks of ordinary people to facilitate the circulation of goods. In this paper, we focus on historical and emergent practices in the Philippines and China, as two closely connected, but economically divergent, sites in which everyday consumers are immersed in the small-scale consumption practices enabled by micrologistics.

Biography

Anna Cristina Pertierra is a Professor in the School of Design, University of Technology Sydney. She is an anthropologist and cultural studies scholar with international expertise in urban ethnography, consumption and everyday economies, digital media, and popular culture. She led the recent publication from that project, New Consumers in the Global South (2026 de Gruyter).

Dr. Tingting Liu is a Chancellor's Research Fellow and senior lecturer at UTS and was previously Associate Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Jinan University, Guangzhou. She was a Principal Investigator on the Australian Research Council project New Consumer Cultures in the Global South. Her research expertise is in contemporary Chinese digital media and platforms, the sociology of labor, and cross-cultural communication studies.

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