Toxic violence in marine sacrificial zones: Developing blue justice through marine democracy in Chile

Abstract

Marine sacrificial zones are planned areas dedicated to the toxic violence of carbo-chemical port development around the world. In the marine environment in Chile, repeated fisher led new social movements have been raised regarding the need to create laws controlling marine pollution from combined coal power station/extraction complexes and realise participatory blue epistemic justice. A series of case studies from across Chile demonstrate the importance of integrating fisher observations of contamination. Interviews and participatory GIS shows how fisher communities LEK observations can be integrated from Quintero, Mejillones and Coronel, which help generalise about the participatory solutions to the impacts of other coastal industrial complexes. The social protests of 2020–2021 opened up a new space for environmental rights through a successful campaign for a new Chilean constitution, the importance of which is shown by the politization of the violence of these sacrificial zones locally and globally. Differently to the creation of the constitution by the neoliberal dictatorship, the participatory space afforded by a people’s constitution through a plebiscite means that environmental justice concerns can be implemented in concrete form.