Othering National Identity Alterity and Indigenous Activism in Otavalo, Ecuador by Sergio Miguel ...

330 Pages·2010·0.83 MB·English

Othering National Identity
Alterity and Indigenous Activism in Otavalo, Ecuador

by

Sergio Miguel Huarcaya

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Anthropology and History)
in The University of Michigan
2011

Doctoral Committee
Professor Bruce Mannheim, Chair
Associate Professor Stuart A. Kirsch
Professor Paul C. Johnson
Associate Professor Marisol de la Cadena, University of California Davis
© Sergio Miguel Huarcaya
All rights reserved
2011
To Blanca Chancoso

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Table of Contents
Dedication ii
Chapter I Introduction Blanca Chancoso’s Courage 1
Chapter II Imagining Ecuadorians 59
Chapter III Indios and Blancos in Otavalo 127
Chapter IV Challenging Blancos 170
Chapter V Challenging the Hacendado 218
Chapter VI Conclusions Challenging the Nation-State 284
Bibliography 295

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Chapter I
Introduction
Blanca Chancoso’s Courage
In January 2001, only one year after the levantamiento (uprising)1 of January 2000 had
brought down the presidency of Jamil Mahuad, the Ecuadorian highlands and eastern
lowlands were again paralyzed by massive indigenous protest. Thousands of indigenous
demonstrators blocked main highways, halted the delivery of their agricultural production
to local markets, and went to Quito—the national capital—and other cities to join the
marches protesting against the government of Gustavo Noboa. Once again, indígenas
(indigenous persons) were putting the Ecuadorian government in check.2

1
Since colonial times, non-indigenous persons have used the term levantamiento to refer to
uprisings of indigenous peoples. Indigenous leaders choose this term to define the first
contemporary, pan-regional, indigenous uprising in June 1990, calling it Levantamiento Nacional
Indígena (National Indigenous Uprising). The idea was to distinguish it from national strikes,
done by class-based organizations, and to establish continuity with levantamientos during the
colonial and republican periods (Zamosc 1994a:37; L. Macas 12/2/2004).
2
For the levantamiento of January 2001, see Acosta et al. (2001); and the Journal Iconos No. 10).
For both levantamientos of January 2000 and January 2001, see Lucero (Lucero 2001). For the
levantamiento of January 2000, see Dieterich (2001); Hernández et al. (2000); Gerlach (2003);
Ponce (2000); and CONAIE (2000).
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The Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (Confederation of
Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador: CONAIE) had set the levantamiento in motion to
protest against the neoliberal economic measures dictated by President Gustavo Noboa.
In contrast to previous contemporary levantamientos, the Ecuadorian state tried to repress
the mobilization applying unusual levels of violence. The government declared the
country in a state of emergency and arrested hundreds of indigenous demonstrators. In
Quito, police set siege upon thousands of indígenas who had concentrated in the campus
of the Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (Salesian Polytechnic University). In the
provinces, troops shot several demonstrators dead.
Trying to mediate the dialogue between the indigenous leadership, which threatened
to continue the protests, and the executive branch, which refused any negotiations until
the protests stop, the National Congress in Quito called the indígenas to present their
demands. On January 31, at the height of the levantamiento, three designated indigenous
leaders from the highlands, one woman and two men wearing traditional costume, went
to the Congress. At the entrance, which was swarming with people, the following
exchange took place:
Spokesman: “We are coordinating to know who is going to come in.”
Indigenous woman: “Yes, we are the leaders.”
Police officer, aggressively loud: “Let’s see. Your name!”
Unknown voice in the background: “Leaders? From where, how, when?”
Police officer, again loud: “Your name!”
Indigenous woman: “What did you say?”
Police officer: “What is your name? [We need] Your name to…”
Indigenous woman, angry: “Don’t you know how to treat persons well?”
Other unknown voices: “…to announce it [to congress].” “…to bring you inside.”
Indigenous woman: “You need to say señora (madam)! You are not going to call me
mi hijita (my little daughter)! I am not your little daughter!
Police officer, changing radically his tone from aggressive to cordial: “Please, your
name?”
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Indigenous woman: “Good. You need to learn how to treat [us] as persons! Respect
me!”
Police officer: “Let’s see, please, your name?”
Indigenous woman: “Say to me, ‘Señora, [what is] your name?’”
Police officer: “Señora, [what is] your name?
Indigenous woman: “Good. Blanca Chancoso.”
Police officer: “Señora Blanca Chancoso.”
Indigenous woman: “That’s it.”
I watched this incident in a video recording, a day after it had occurred. At the time of the
uprising, while pursuing an M.A. degree in Latin American Studies in Ecuador, I
occasionally worked and volunteered as a video producer and instructor for the CONAIE.
The video was shot by a foreign activist who, like I, was a member of CONAIE’s
Department of Communication. There, we were busy documenting the uprising and
counteracting the government’s media campaign against the mobilization. Using Power
Point presentations sent to electronic mailing lists, we reported on government
repression. A few days into the uprising, the government realized that its strategy had
backfired. The repression had incited more mobilization rather than dissipating it.
Eventually, the government backed down, and the uprising was seen as a triumph for the
indigenous movement.
The indígena embroiled with the police officer was Blanca Chancoso, a renowned
leader of the Ecuadorian indigenous movement. In the altercation, she was not only
demanding respect from a brusque police officer but also bringing forward an indigenous
moral critique on the history of interethnic relations in Ecuador. The presence of the
video camera might have compelled the officer to yield to Blanca Chancoso’s demands,
but the significance of the incident lays in what she did: she preempted him from treating
her paternalistically. She cut off in advance the possibility for the officer to led the
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interaction into a paternalistic framework, even though perhaps he was not going to do
so.
Blanca Chancoso’s acute awareness of the way in which power permeates interethnic
interactions is an outcome of indigenous subaltern experience. Not long ago, it was
common for non-indígenas3 to address indigenous adults as “mi hijito” or “mi hijita” with
the intention of restricting their power to act at their own discretion, implying that the
indígenas, just as children, were unable to know what was good for them and needed
protection.
Non-indígenas reserved the terms “señor” (Mister) and “señora” (Madam), as well as
“don” and “doña” (honorific title used before the first name), to address socially
respectable non-indígenas, at the top of local hierarchies.4 They also avoided the use of
the word “usted” (formal you), the polite form of address in Spanish, when addressing an
indígena. Instead, they used the informal “tú” or “vos” (informal you), a term reserved
for friends and family members who are not your seniors. In brief, indígenas, even
unknown persons, were never addressed as señor/señora, don/doña, or usted.

3
I use the term non-indígena as an analytical category to refer to non-black, non-indigenous
Ecuadorians. To refer to them, scholars have used the terms blanco (white), mestizo, and since
the 1980s blanco-mestizo (white-mestizo). These terms muddle local usage and meaning, which
varies across time and space, with analytical categorization. In addition, persons may choose a
category but have another foisted on them. Furthermore, I consider that the term blanco-mestizo
implies a false homogeneity and hides discrimination within this category (See Roitman 2009).
Using non-indígena allows thinking about social categorization in relational and processual terms.
When referring to local usage, I use the term blanco in Spanish, without translating it to English. I
consider that its translation, “white,” does not render appropriately all the complexities of
meaning deployed in local usage.
4
Locally, these were members of the respectable class, who—like the gente decente, decent folks
or people of worth, in Cuzco, Peru, studied by Marisol de la Cadena (de la Cadena 1998, 2000)—
did not self-identify as mestizos and articulated their social superiority in terms of a racialized
morality.
4
Treating indígenas paternalistically, non-indígenas imposed an oppressive fictional
intimacy in which indígenas could not demand respect as adult persons (Casagrande
1981: 260; de la Torre 1999: 101; Meisch 2002: 206; Pallares 2000: 274). This treatment
was naturalized inasmuch as indigenous subordination and non-indigenous dominance
were taken for granted. As indigenous professional Segundo Ramos claims, “For them
(non-indígenas), there was no racism. To say ‘mi hijito’ to the indio (Indian) was the
standard behavior. It was not seen as racism because they considered that by saying ‘mi
hijito,’ they were treating you well” (9/20/2006).
In addition, indígenas could neither display aggressive behavior against nor give
orders to non-indígenas. These were challenges to the social hierarchy, and would have
provoked disciplinary action, often with the complicity of local authorities and police
(Butler 1981: 282; Korovkin 2001: 47; Villavicencio 1973: 119-120). Under this social
framing, the scene at the entrance of Congress constitutes a reversal of roles: the
subaltern india tells the dominant non-indio, none other than a policeman, what is the
proper way to behave, and the latter submits, conducting himself accordingly. If we were
to ask, “What is it that’s going on here?” in Erving Goffman’s sense (1974), we would
find out that the principles of organization that govern events of interethnic interaction
had changed dramatically in a few decades.
After watching the video, I was utterly impressed by Blanca Chancoso’s courage and
determination. I could not avoid comparing her behavior with the image, stereotypical but
no less factual, of the subservient and passive indígena—a behavior that I have witnessed
in my homeland Peru and in Ecuador. In Otavalo, according to Lynn Meisch, some
indígenas still knelt in front and kissed the hand of non-indígenas up until the 1990s
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(2002: 214). If a few decades ago, most indígenas and non-indígenas were predisposed to
play their respective roles of submission and dominance—as several researchers have
attested (Casagrande 1981: 261; Rosero 1982: 108)—today indigenous activists are
prompt to denounce the pervasive workings of racism and its paternalistic masquerades—
as Blanca Chancoso demonstrates. Thinking that not long ago the conditions of
possibility for an indigenous woman to treat a policeman in a domineering manner were
nonexistent, I could not help but ask myself: Where does Blanca Chancoso’s courage
come from? What is exactly at stake in her hyperconsciousness about interethnic
relations?

On July 12, 2008, in the early afternoon, a dancing party of around fifty people came
out of a school in the city of Otavalo. Most of them were indígenas and the rest, around a
dozen, including myself, were mestizos. Performing the heavy stamping steps that
characterized indigenous dancing in the province of Imbabura, the party moved to the
lively rhythms of five musicians leading the way. The musicians played a guitar, two
bandolines—a mandolin-like instrument with fifteen strings—a violin, a harmonica, and
a flute. The dancers moved forward, but following the spontaneous call of any of the
participants, they formed a big circle, changing the direction of rotation when the music
moved into the next harmonic sequence. After some turns, they moved forward again. All
of this dancing and merriment blocked the traffic several times, especially at street
intersections. Car drivers, instead of complaining, cheered the dancers with joyful shouts.
The festivity was the Gallo Pasai (offering of roosters) in the community of San Luis
de Agualongo, the place to which we were going. The two priostes (sponsors) of the
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