ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the implications of localised natural disasters for the geographies of transportation and global commodity chains by examining two particular natural disasters, the Great Hanjin Earthquake of 1995 and Hurricane Katrina of 2005. It briefly reviews the literature on commodity chains, networks, and circuits. The chapter describes the effects of the Great Hanjin Earthquake on Kobe and some of the commodity chains of which that city is a part. It discusses the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, the Gulf States of Louisiana and Mississippi, and other locations, metaphorically upstream and downstream. There are generally considered to be different approaches to the commodity chain concept. The concept has expanded to include the processes of globalisation, being renamed global commodity chains (GCC). Criticisms of the linear nature of GCCs, and its focus on product rather than process, have led to a main approach: commodity networks or circuits.
