The work-intensive fiction of frictionless trade in the Angolan port of Lobito

Cargo shipping, as emblematic stand-in for globalization, peddles a seductive imagery of frictionless transnational trade and just-in-time logistics. Backed by the normative might institutions, instruments such UNCTAD’s Automated System Customs Data (ASYCUDA) are being rolled out across “developing countries,” promising rationalization, acceleration, “dematerialization” customs processing, while countries themselves introduce efficiency reforms to smoothen flow goods. This article charts intensive work required produce this fantasy around Atlantic port Lobito, Angola. In context where imports have dropped 50 percent 60 since 2014 due lower oil prices, traces how actors involved in making import-dependent economy deal with seeming failure promises transnationally connected economic growth.