Vyacheslav Bondarenko

Vyacheslav Bondarenko is associated doctoral fellow at Max-Weber-Kolleg, Erfurt, and a research assistant at the German Maritime Museum (Deutsches Schifffahrtsmuseum), Bremerhaven. He holds a master’s degree in Sociology – European Societies from the Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin), where he wrote his master thesis on the shipbreaking industry using the world-systems approach. In addition, he has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Surrey, United Kingdom, as well as work experience as an economic analyst at various shipping companies in the City of London.

Vyacheslav’s academic interests lie within world-systems analysis and the shipping industry, which he continues to research as part of his PhD. In particular, he studies the role of the container shipping industry in uneven development and how it contributes to unbalanced globalisation.

A picture of Vyacheslav Bondarenko.

Research project

ACROSS THE OCEAN TO ENRICH THE FEW. CONTAINER SHIPPING INDUSTRY AND UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

Working within the world-system approach and utilising the insights from theories of uneven geographical development, my PhD project aims to analyse the relationship between globalisation and container shipping industry. The guiding question of my research is the following: In what ways does the evolution of the container shipping industry contribute to the configuration of the world-economy and uneven development of the global capitalism? Instead of portraying container shipping as a passive servant of globalisation and seeing it only as derivative of economic tendencies, I propose the hypothesis that the dynamics within the container shipping industry actively influence the development of global capitalism.

In particular, I want to analyse, first, the ways in which container shipping industry prevents balanced globalisation. Further, I pay special attention to global container shipping alliances and their contribution to uneven geographical development. Finally, I elaborate on environmental limits to further globalisation with the special focus on the container shipping industry.

I endeavour to research the container shipping industry as a crucial factor in the functioning of the capitalist world-system, with liner shipping connectivity being one of the most important determinants of centrality in the global system of trade. In addition, I strive to investigate the spatial contradictions characteristic of container shipping – sea/land interaction of intermodal transportation and mobility/fixity contradiction between vessel and port – and their role in uneven geographical development.

Subprojects

JRT02 Clash or Convergence of Capitalisms: Property Conflicts over Chinese Direct Investments in Germany and the European Union

Associate Member/ Fellow