“The environment is the largest Enterprise in the world”. Social Reconfigurations of Environmental Institutions in Islote, Colombia

Abstract

The objective of this article is to examine the presence and local reconfigurations of environmental institutions in Islote, an island of the Colombian Caribbean. Through the ethnographic-field work that took place during 2010, part of 2011, and subsequent visits in 2018, I study how socio-political organization and individual prestige are local factors that contradict National Natural Parks of Colombia’s expectations and policies. The results of the participant observation, ethnographic interviews, and participation in workshops of environmental entities show that the presence of environmental institutions separates from its local meaning and acquires another form; it becomes a bureaucratic space of external representation locally reconfigured. Inspired by the concept of colonial simplification of Page West (2006), I show how both the islanders and the environmental entity go through a process of mutual simplification that mostly generates conflictive relations.