This study examines how the Indigenous Guna People in Panama navigate values of tradition and modernity in an era of accelerating and overheating Anthropocene. Living on low-lying coral atolls in the Caribbean Sea, the Gardi Sugdub community is now one of many local communities worldwide whose home is predicted to be uninhabitable in the coming decades due to climate-induced sea level rise and population growth. To safeguard their future, island residents have initiated a process of moving back to the montane forest on the nearby mainland, which was their homeland before colonial powers and tropical diseases pushed them to the islands in recent centuries. This thesis provides an exploration of Indigenous agency in the global climate discourse by investigating how the Sugdub community perceives not only the opportunities and obstacles of their self-initiated relocation project but also their situation as living in the conditions of what is best described as slow violence. These conditions are typically not viewed as violence at all but rather overlooked as long-term casualties, occurring gradually and out of sight. Furthermore, this research offers a broader debate of Indigenous ontology by discussing the Guna’s close, but not perfect, relationship to their surrounding natural environment.

Through ethnographic fieldwork methods including participant observation, informal conversations and interviews, photography and sensuous methods, this study analyses how the Guna themselves perceive and experience leaving their islands and, to some extent, amphibious lifestyle behind. In sum, this thesis argues that framing the islanders as solely climate-displaced is not giving the whole picture. Instead, a web of ecological, social, economic, and cultural factors informs the decision to relocate.