Título en español.

Abstract

The coast, an ill-understood and often despised landscape, is a vital space where important identities are constructed. In this article I explore and apply the concept of chronotope, developed by Mijail Bajtin and appropriated by geographers, anthropologists and literary critics, to understand the social and cultural complexity of the coast. Using ethnographic and historical research, I explore the coast through the processes of founding places, and the naming of places (toponymy) and the people who inhabit them. The coastal areas of Puerto Real in Cabo Rojo, Barrio Puntas in the municipality of Rincón, the mangrove forest of Puerta de Tierra in San Juan, and the Guánica Dry Forest are the coastal chronotopes examined here through the lenses of anthropology, history and literature.