Coastal territorialities and ontologies in friction: a review of multiple coastal settlements in the context of climate change

Co-existence among multiple coastal settlements (MCS) following diverse ecological, economic, and cultural traditions drives to examine the territorial and ontological dimensions underlying the development of heterogeneous worldviews within common coastal geographies. In the case of the coastal zone in Chile, cultural diversity is evident as a historical field of dispute, which in the current context of adaptation to climate change may be reproducing or moving to other new trajectories. Using a literature review specifically on the case of the Arauco province in Chile, this article aims to identify a typology of multiple territorialities and ontologies interacting and being sustained by common coastal environments, although embedded in frictions and both structural and historical inequalities. Through thematic analysis framed in poststructuralist political ecology, this review identified three categories of territorialities that develop in the study area (i.e. colonial, intercultural, and interstitial). Each one leads to recognising the power dynamics that underlie the interactions of practices and discourses on the territory, the sea, and the conservation of nature. Results show that the historical predominance of modern ontology has produced permissible ways of being and moving through this geography. In contrast, resistance has been generated by other ways of living based on relational, traditional, and contemporaneous ontologies with discourses aimed at socio-ecological equilibrium. The current challenge is understanding these ontological frictions and interstices wherein multiple territorialities configured in a common coastal geography can co-exist and co-participate in climate change governance.