Rights statement: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Satizábal P., Batterbury S. P. J. Fluid geographies: Marine territorialisation and the scaling up of local aquatic epistemologies on the Pacific coast of Colombia. Trans Inst Br Geogr. 2018;43:61–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12199 which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tran.12199/abstract This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Fluid geographies
T2 - marine territorialisation and the scaling up of local aquatic epistemologies on the Pacific Coast of Colombia
AU - Satizábal, Paula
AU - Batterbury, Simon
N1 - This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Satizábal P., Batterbury S. P. J. Fluid geographies: Marine territorialisation and the scaling up of local aquatic epistemologies on the Pacific coast of Colombia. Trans Inst Br Geogr. 2018;43:61–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12199 which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tran.12199/abstract This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
PY - 2018/2/22
Y1 - 2018/2/22
N2 - The Pacific region of Colombia, like many sparsely populated places in developing countries, has been imagined as empty in social terms, and yet full in terms of natural resources and biodiversity. These imaginaries have enabled the creation of frontiers of land and sea control, where the state as well as private and illegal actors have historically dispossessed Afro-descendant and indigenous peoples. This paper contributes to the understanding of territorialisation in the oceans, where political and legal framings of the sea as an open-access public good have neglected the existence of marine social processes. It shows how Afro-descendant communities and non-state actors are required to use the language of resources, rather than socio-cultural attachment, to negotiate state marine territorialisation processes. Drawing on a case study on the Pacific coast of Colombia, we demonstrate that Afro-descendant communities hold local aquatic epistemologies, in which knowledge and the production of space are entangled in fluid and volumetric spatio-temporal dynamics. However, despite the social importance of aquatic environments, they were excluded from Afro-descendants’ collective territorial rights in the 1990s. Driven by their local aquatic epistemologies, coastal communities are reclaiming authority over the seascape through the creation of a marine protected area.We argue that they have transformed relations of authority at sea to ensure local access and control, using state institutional instruments to subvert and challenge the legal framing of the sea as an open access public good. As such, this marine protected area represents a place of resistance that ironically subjects coastal communities to disciplinary technologies of conservation.
AB - The Pacific region of Colombia, like many sparsely populated places in developing countries, has been imagined as empty in social terms, and yet full in terms of natural resources and biodiversity. These imaginaries have enabled the creation of frontiers of land and sea control, where the state as well as private and illegal actors have historically dispossessed Afro-descendant and indigenous peoples. This paper contributes to the understanding of territorialisation in the oceans, where political and legal framings of the sea as an open-access public good have neglected the existence of marine social processes. It shows how Afro-descendant communities and non-state actors are required to use the language of resources, rather than socio-cultural attachment, to negotiate state marine territorialisation processes. Drawing on a case study on the Pacific coast of Colombia, we demonstrate that Afro-descendant communities hold local aquatic epistemologies, in which knowledge and the production of space are entangled in fluid and volumetric spatio-temporal dynamics. However, despite the social importance of aquatic environments, they were excluded from Afro-descendants’ collective territorial rights in the 1990s. Driven by their local aquatic epistemologies, coastal communities are reclaiming authority over the seascape through the creation of a marine protected area.We argue that they have transformed relations of authority at sea to ensure local access and control, using state institutional instruments to subvert and challenge the legal framing of the sea as an open access public good. As such, this marine protected area represents a place of resistance that ironically subjects coastal communities to disciplinary technologies of conservation.
KW - territory
KW - geographies of the sea
KW - marine protected areas
KW - conservation
KW - Afro-descendants
KW - Colombia
U2 - 10.1111/tran.12199
DO - 10.1111/tran.12199
M3 - Journal article
VL - 43
SP - 61
EP - 78
JO - Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series
JF - Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series
SN - 0020-2754
IS - 1
ER -