“Soon it will be a concrete jungle”: Perceptions and Projected Impacts of ‘El Proyecto Techos de Esperanza’ in Bastimentos, Panamá

Abstract

El Proyecto Techos de Esperanza is a state implemented resettlement initiative advertised by Panama’s Ministry of Housing to provide homes for underserved communities across the country. This study focuses on one development site on Isla Bastimentos, located in Panamá’s Bocas del Toro region, where Black and Indigenous families from the nearby coastal town are projected to be relocated. Made in the absence of local representation, destructive land use practices have incited terraforming and hydrological alterations which this study projects will expose resettled residents to environmentally hazardous conditions amplified by key regional climate change risks, threaten cultural subsistence ties, and limit local adaptive capacities. In addition, this study suggests that top-down procedures of the project entail coercive tactics, negligence towards cultural needs and values, and failures to provide clear and consistent information, orchestrated to oppress opposition, legitimize, and mobilize the development of the resettlement site. This study centers the perceptions and lived experiences of the Bastimentos community confronted by El Proyecto Techos de Esperanza, in defense of Black and Indigenous sovereignty and resilience.