One State, Many Nations: Indigenous Rights Struggles in Ecuador (original) (raw)
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The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 2007
En éste artículo, exploro las practicas de auto-representación usadas por los líderes o dirigentes de la Nacionalidad Zápara del Ecuador (NAZAE), uno de los grupos indígenas más pequeños de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana. Éstos dirigentes han utilizado sus idiomas indígenas, específicamente zápara y kichwa, para simbolizar su autenticidad cultural cuando interactúan con individuos que no pertenecen a la nacionalidad zápara. El énfasis de éstos lideres en los idiomas zápara y kichwa, como indicadores de la legit- imidad de sus comunidades, ha sido importante para crear un espacio político para los indígenas záparas en el Ecuador. Sin embargo, en el proceso de comparar idiomas indí- genas con autenticidad cultural, los lideres záparas también han parcialmente ocultado e invalidado practicas de la historia zápara. Por ejemplo, ellos han ocultado el uso del idioma español en sus comunidades cuando representan sus comunidades a personas no záparas, y han utilizado la falta de conocimiento del idioma zápara de líderes indígenas rivales para desacreditarles. Al examinar la complejidad de las practicas de representación de lideres indígenas en América Latina, he contribuido a un proceso de aprendizaje más complejo y comprensivo al estudiar y ver cómo éstos lideres han articulado nuevas expresiones de autoridad indígena en el proceso de auto-representación.
Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2010
To what extent might an indigenous mayor govern beyond ethnically defined grievances, without being labelled traitor by the indigenous organisation? This article deals with the challenges faced by the Ecuadorian indigenous movement when it attains power in local government. The issue will be explored through the case of Mario Conejo, who in 2000 became the first indigenous mayor of Otavalo representing the indigenous political movement Pachakutik. Although ethnically based tensions in the local indigenous movement were evident throughout the period, 2006 saw Conejo leave Pachakutik and create a new political movement. This rupture can be traced, I argue, to an intercultural dilemma and the difficulties of ethnically defined political movements.
International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 2015
The 1970s and 1980s meant an ethnic politicization of the indigenous movement in Ecuador, until this moment defined largely as a class-based movement of indigenous peasants. The indigenous organizations started to conceptualize indigenous peoples as nationalities with their own economic, social, cultural and legal structures and therefore with the right to autonomy and self-determination. Based on this conceptualization, the movement developed demands for a pluralist reform of state and society in order to install a plurinational state with wide degrees of autonomy and participation for indigenous nationalities. A part of those demands was the double strategy to fight for legal pluralism while already installing it at the local level. Even if some degrees of legal pluralism have been recognized in Ecuador since the mid-1990s, in practice, the local de facto practice prevails until today. Another central part of the demand for plurinationality is the representation of indigenous peoples in the legislative organs of the state, developing since their first appearance in the 1940s in a complex way. This article will analyze the development of right-based demands within the discourse of the indigenous movement in Ecuador, the visions of the implied state-reform and the organizational and political background and implication they have. Based on an analysis of the central texts of the indigenous organizations, conceptualizations of rights and laws and their appropriation within an autonomist discourse and a local practice will be highlighted.
America, Ecuador and Bolivia have been considered as two perfect examples of the implementation of institutional multiculturalism during the 2000 decade. The recent constitutions have recognized the plurinational State and improved some institutional, political and social aspects in the relations between the Indian People and the " mestizos " (Mixed people). These constitutions have also enhanced participative democracy with different mechanisms and levels of political participation and social control on the government and local powers. The relation between the plurinational State and participative democracy is the object of our analysis. We will examine the real impact of multiculturalism on the integration of Indians in the political community and their access to citizenship. This communication, thus, presents an evaluation of the political changes in both countries, nearly five years after the adoption of new constitutions. This will enable us to understand a paradox: there is an increasing distance between Indian movements and the current governments, although these governments have recognized the most important Indian claims. This might result from the priority given by current governments to the reestablishment of State control over natural resources, especially energy resources, and their promotion of what has been referred to as an " extractive model " , at the expense of indigenous collective rights.
The Rise of Ethnic Politics: Indigenous movements in the Andean region
Development, 2009
Laura Fano Morrissey traces the rise of indigenous movements in four Andean countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. By analysing how these movements have formed, she discusses issues of identity and belonging and the role these concepts have played in making indigenous groups a growing force in the continent. She also provides an account of the new constitutions adopted in Bolivia and Ecuador and the innovative traits they have introduced in the political discourse on ethnicity and identity.
Undoing Multiculturalism: Resource Extraction and Indigenous Rights in Ecuador
JILAR, 2023
In Ecuador, the 2021 presidential election was puzzling. In the first round, progressive candidates captured over two-thirds of the vote: Andrés Arauz, emerging from the movement that supported Rafael Correa in government for a decade (2007–2017), got 35%; Yaku Pérez, supported by Pachakutik and with ascendancy over fractions of the Indigenous movement, 19%; and Xavier Hervas, a newcomer who succeeded in associating his figure with a sort of third way option for Ecuador, obtained 15%. This supposed predominance of progressive leanings among the electorate was negated by the final results. Guillermo Lasso, a former banker with an overtly conservative and econom- ically neoliberal profile, eventually prevailed in the second round of the presidential contest. The electoral results sparked debates around key questions: why were progressive candi- dates (and their sympathizers) incapable of converging into some form of strategic alliance to prevent the return of the neoliberal conservatism incarnated by Lasso? What was the essence of the political fractures that divided them at the time? Why did Lasso obtain overwhelming majorities in the second round in many of the constituencies that Yaku Pérez had won comfortably in the first round and how did this Ecuadorian scenario relate to the political dynamics of Latin America’s Pink Tide and the resource nationalism that it sparked? In Undoing Multiculturalism, Carmen Martínez Novo provides a timely, original, and stimulating scholarly resource for anyone interested in finding answers to these questions and in the broader political debates into which they feed.
108th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, United States., 2009
In the 1990’s, after years of military dictatorship, most Latin American countries initiated processes of democratization. Along with the passing of new constitutions, countries acknowledged indigenous peoples and recognized their right to property of communal lands. These transformations occurred in a context of neoliberal reforms, which provoked political and economical adjustment. Interesting, the new constitutions promoted the inclusion of traditionally excluded groups as the nation state was experiencing radical transformations that diminished some of its powers. This paper will examine how the Argentine constitutional amendment of 1994 transformed the way indigenous populations relate to the state and to larger supranational bodies such as the World Bank. It focuses on the Kolla Community of Finca Santiago, the first indigenous community in the country to receive the legal titles to communal lands along with the recognition of their ethnic and cultural existence prior to the creation of the nation state. While historically the state had denied ethnic particularities imposing homogenizing policies throughout the territory, after these constitutional revisions a new legal status of citizenship and also the configuration of new subjectivities took place. The paper will explore how the Argentine state has been constructing citizenship and ethnic identities, concentrating not only on the official rule but also on how these practices have been shaped by indigenous peoples. It also examines how a World Bank development project carried out in Finca Santiago has shaped these processes at the local and national levels, producing new environmental subjects.