The Sea Unites Us but It Is Governed to Keep Us Apart: Restoring the Creole Afro-Indigenous Sea Mobilities in the Southwestern Caribbean.

Abstract

Increasingly, marine governance advocates for ocean justice and, within it, the rights of coastal communities and indigenous people over the ocean space. Yet, international and state sea regimes strengthen border restrictions, impeding people’s mobilities and fracturing the sea interconnectedness. Against this backdrop and delving into the empirical data gathered through ethnographical research, the paper examines the intangible and the material sea (im)mobilities experienced by the Creole Afro-Indigenous communities in the Corn Islands and the San Andres Archipelago in the Southwestern Caribbean Sea. Through the lens of critical ocean geography and mobility studies, it reveals how the maritime boundary regimes and the frameworks of oceans territoriality have impacted indigenous island spatialities in the Nicaraguan-Colombian marine border area for the last decades, disrupting family and social connections, weakening the communities’ autonomy, and impeding food and provisions supply between the islands, thus threatening the indigenous rights with implications for ocean justice. The paper finally considers Creole Afro-Indigenous maritime activism’s prominent role in decolonizing marine governance in the Greater Caribbean region, suggesting the relevance of laws, norms, structures and ocean governance institutions to acknowledge and incorporate these alternative legalities.