Cocaine & the Port: Utopias of security, urban relations, and displacement of policing efforts in the Port of Piraeus

Cocaine & the Port: Utopias of security, urban relations, and displacement of policing efforts in the Port of Piraeus 

Anna Sergi, Professor of Criminology, Department of Sociology, University of Essex 

In large commercial seaports, policing and security efforts to counter the drug trade, especially cocaine, do not appear to be effective beyond a mere displacement effect. In the port of Piraeus, Greece, (perceived) rising quantities of cocaine have called for further securitisation of the port to curb illicit trafficking. This seminar will present the current trends of countering and disrupting cocaine at the port of Piraeus and will also question how these efforts, together with the growth of the port, are affecting the overall territory of and around the port. 

This seminar will first argue that the (perceived) increase in cocaine trade towards/in the port of Piraeus has activated a ‘utopia of security’ in the policing and security responses at…