Undoing Multiculturalism: Resource Extraction and Indigenous Rights in Ecuador

Description

President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) led the Ecuadoran Citizens’ Revolution that claimed to challenge the tenets of neoliberalism and the legacies of colonialism. The Correa administration promised to advance Indigenous and Afro-descendant rights and redistribute resources to the most vulnerable. In many cases, these promises proved to be hollow. Using two decades of ethnographic research, Undoing Multiculturalism examines why these intentions did not become a reality, and how the Correa administration undermined the progress of Indigenous people. A main complication was pursuing independence from multilateral organizations in the context of skyrocketing commodity prices, which caused a new reliance on natural resource extraction. Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and other organized groups resisted the expansion of extractive industries into their territories because they threatened their livelihoods and safety. As the Citizens’ Revolution and other “Pink Tide” governments struggled to finance budgets and maintain power, they watered down subnational forms of self-government, slowed down land redistribution, weakened the politicized cultural identities that gave strength to social movements, and reversed other fundamental gains of the multicultural era. Contents Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction. Undoing Multiculturalism Chapter 1. Being Indigenous in Ecuador Chapter 2. Dispensing and Curtailing Rights through Policy and Practice Chapter 3. The Minimization of Indigenous Numbers and the Fragmentation of Civil Society Chapter 4. Creating and Dismantling Intercultural Bilingual Education Chapter 5. Anthropology and Indigenous Peoples: Collaborations and Estrangements Chapter 6. The Salesian Missions: Navigating Neoliberalism and Nationalist-Extractivism with the Indigenous Movement Chapter 7. Ventriloquism, Racism, and the Politics of Decolonial Scholarship Conclusion. Neoliberalism, Nationalist-Extractivism, and Racial Formations in Ecuador References Index