The recovery of the commons in southern Chile: institutional construction of the Indigenous Marine Areas

Abstract

The establishment of the Indigenous Marine Areas (IMAs or ECMPOS in Spanish) highlights the disputes over the common pool resources, which are rooted in interactions between users who have divergent stakes over the marine and coastal zone. Based on the analytical proposal of the New Institutional Political Ecology and the frame analysis, the article explores the institutional construction process related to the recovery of the commons through the creation and implementation of IMAs in southern Chile. In this process, the positions of the stakeholders are legitimized through discourses and narratives where the vision of the IMAs as a limit of the local and regional development is contrasted with the vision that supports them as a key tool for the protection of the commons and the territory.