3 - Indigenous Movements in the Eye of the Hurricane

Summary

Sociologist Andrés Guerrero famously examined how nineteenth-century liberal legislation in Ecuador created a “ventriloquist’s voice” that mediated Indigenous expressions of resistance to exclusionary governing structures. The assumption is that intermediaries purportedly spoke out in defense of subaltern rights but in reality only desired to advance their own interests. Intermediaries allegedly added another layer of exploitation to an already marginalized and silenced population. Careful studies, however, reveal that Indigenous activists did advance their own agendas, both alone and in collaboration with sympathetic urban allies. Recovering subaltern voices, nevertheless, is complicated by a lack of the written archival documentation that typically forms the basis for scholarly examinations. This lack of sources is not the fault of local organic intellectuals, but rather a result of the racist attitudes of a dominant class who did not find the thoughts and actions of Indigenous people worthy of preservation. This essay examines the gap between the perception of both domestic and international surveillance operations and the realities of rural mobilizations.