Towards the formation of ecological minds: marine imaginaries in texts for children

Abstract

In this essay, I will first discuss ecocritical inquiry and the broader framework of environmental humanities. Later, I will describe a constellation of five cultural productions aimed at rising environmental awareness, scientific exploration, and activism, which have circulated in the Chilean context recently, four of them related to children’s cultures. This amalgam of cultural productions exceeds the category of the literary, as well as definitions of genres within children’s literature, and at the same time, reaches out to the interdisciplinary, together with international collaboration. The degree to which these boundaries are blurred seems to contribute to the extent to which the creations succeed in raising ecological awareness. The assemblage encompasses three children’s books, one chronicle and a scientific exhibit, all of them related to marine life and cultures.