Contested mobilities in the maritory: Implications of boundary formation in a nomadic space

José Barrena,Alberto Harambour,Machiel Lamers,Simon R Bush

doi:10.1177/23996544211016866

José Barrena, Alberto Harambour + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544211016866

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Abstract

The mobility of nomadic Indigenous people has been systematically constrained over time by states seeking control over peripheral spaces and people. This is evident in the case of the Kawésqar nomadic ‘people of the sea’ who have been subject to a century of attempts by the Chilean state to spatially fix their movements over both their terrestrial territories and marine ‘maritories’. In this paper, we show how Indigenous groups like the Kawésqar can challenge and even regain partial control over their maritory by using spatial instruments of the state. We argue that by using these instruments to remobilise, the Kawésqar have been empowered to demobilise other groups and marine related sectors, such as aquaculture. These findings can reorient public policy to be more sensitive to Indigenous space and mobility. Instead of focusing exclusively on the establishment of spatial boundaries to exclude Indigenous communities, they can be used as a means of empowering these communities to exert control over actors and sectors seeking to limit their mobility.

Highlights

Today we arrive in Puerto Eden, the only human settlement in more than 400 linear kilometres, promoted on board as the place where the last Kawesqar people live
During field work in Puerto Eden, the first author lodged in a refuge owned by the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF), the institution that administers protected areas in Chile under the National System of Wild Protected Areas (SNASPE)
Policy makers can open up to new forms of marine policy that recognises the effects of Indigenous mobility on, and in response to, ‘mobile others’ enabled by the state. Examples of such approaches include the joint administration of protected areas by Indigenous people and the state, or the designation of marine enclosures exclusive for customary uses

Summary

Introduction

Today we arrive in Puerto Eden, the only human settlement in more than 400 linear kilometres, promoted on board as the place where the last Kawesqar people live. Immobilisation, remobilisation and demobilisation, we conclude, highlight (1) how once mobile Indigenous groups deploy their agency at the frontiers of the nation-state and (2) the potential discontinuities of internal territorialisation in remote and contested marine regions These insights in turn inform a new understanding of the temporal and spatial struggles nomadic people of the sea face, as well as novel ways in which they regain (partial) control over their marine space, or what we refer to as ‘maritory’, through different forms of mobility. The term maritory has been used to define marine spaces and recognize the relevance of marine mobility for local groups in the Patagonian Archipelago (see A lvarez et al, 2019; Harambour and Barrena Ruiz, 2019) Based on this perspective, we identify and analyse three distinct and chronologically ordered effects of internal territorialisation over, and subsequently by Kawesqar people in an attempt to regain control over their maritory (see Figure 1). It is reasonable to consider how demobilisation can be a strategy to those ends

Methods

Conclusion