ABSTRACT
Sediments deposited by the Amazon River form large banks that migrate along the Guianese coast under the influence of waves and currents. In French Guiana, these mobile mudbanks cause the coastal landscape to alternate between mangroves, wet savannas, and sandy beaches. In the lower Maroni River area, which forms the border between French Guiana and Suriname, there is evidence of human presence for at least 7,000 years. In this chapter, coastal change is presented on a local scale by examining the ways in which Indigenous Kali’na people have interacted with this shifting coastal landscape over centuries of habitation. Ethnographic research in the municipality of Awala-Yalimapo is enriched by geomorphological and archaeological data from late pre-Columbian to contemporary times. Current coastal landscapes and settlements in this region are shaped by historical and contemporary ecological and cultural processes. Kali’na historical settlement patterns, mobility, and environmental ontologies are presented in the context of shifting landscapes. Recently emerging narratives of climate change based on environmental science and heavily promoted by the French state tend to undermine the continuity of coastal dynamics as experienced by local people. The climate change concept does not necessarily articulate lived Kali’na experiences.
