Ecosocial inequalities and intergenerational practices of education and community resistance from the inhabiting of childhoods on the coastal edge of Antofagasta

Abstract

This article shares a socio-community experience developed in Caleta Abtao in Antofagasta. This was articulated with a social research process on spaces and sociocultural relationships in the desert, and its purpose was to investigate the socio-spatial constructions and ways of inhabiting of children from the coastal edge of Antofagasta, northern Chile.

The general objective was to analyze the ways of inhabiting/knowing marine coastal spaces of childhoods produced on the coastal edge of Antofagasta. The specific objectives were a) To describe socio-spatial and historical contexts that intervene in community education and b) To recognize traditional and community knowledge built in Caleta Abtao in Antofagasta.

Its problematization and conceptual framework were nourished by the New Social Studies of Childhood (Spyrou, 2018; Gaitán, 2022) and their spatial turn, considering an approach to "childhood´s geographies" (Kraftl & Horton, 2019; Ortiz, 2007; Ortiz et al., 2012). Likewise, there was an articulation with decolonial perspectives (Liebel, Martínez, and Markowska-Manista, 2024) which describe childhood as a sociocultural and historical construction produced by negotiations of power relations (Liebel, Martínez, and Markowska-Manista, 2024; Szulc, 2019; Szluc, 2015). In this sense, other childhoods become intelligible in tension with processes of colonization (Liebel, Martínez, and Markowska-Manista, 2024) and models of uncritical glorification of child agency (Szulc, 2019).

The methodological approach was qualitative with a biographical and ethnographic focus. This is because the biographical approach has been useful in the production of subjectivity of childhoods in coastal spaces, integrating intergenerational narratives (Spyrou, et al., 2021; Trine Kjørholt, et al., 2023). Likewise, ethnographic approaches have been significant in highlighting children's social agency in a situated manner, considering the actions and interpretations of other social agents (Szluc, 2019).

We also use participatory strategies within the fields of action of community social psychology with a decolonial perspective (Hüning, Parra-Valencia, and Fernandes, 2021) and techniques associated with childhood´s geographies (Kraftl & Horton, 2019; Ortiz, 2007; Ortiz et al., 2012). Thus, together with the children, we construct "participatory cartographies" using artistic tools (Aguilar, 2020) to gather socio-spatial information about their coves.

As an information analysis strategy, the “narrative analysis of corpolugar” (Méndez Caro, 2021) was used. This emphasizes the production of spatialized subjectivity (embodiment), addressing three dimensions: a) Technologies of colonial domination, b) Relational (more-than-human) space, and c) Collective memory. The treatment of narratives considered dialogic listening, categorization, interpretation, and writing as research.

The main findings were organized into different emerging units of meaning. Among these: socio-environmental and territorial tensions, spirituality, traditional knowledge, collective socio-spatial memory, and sense of community.

Thus, this research approached the geographies of childhoods in Caleta Abtao. These, according to the corpolugar narratives, produce dynamic and multispecies relational spaces that are in tension with the patriarchal-colonial capitalist neo-extractivism that directly and indirectly impacts their lives. However, in these, they also find resistances and ways of becoming with developing, producing other possible worlds that are more-than-human and convey connections that matter (Haraway, 2019).