Cultural Politic of Ecuadorian Indigenous Federation

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Introduction: development, identity, and indigenous organizations

`Development' is one of the defining ideas of our times. The intrigue, admiration, and

criticism it attracts can largely be attributed to the fact that it is interpreted in so many

diverse, often contradictory, ways. What for the World Bank or International Monetary

Fund (IMF) is a process of poverty alleviation and empowerment is for critics on the

right an inefficient waste of resources on undeserving targets,(1) while those on the left

critique development as an apparatus of Western hegemony that creates, rather than

eliminates, poverty (for example, Yapa 1996a; 1996b). Indeed, as Frederick Cooper and

Randall Packard (1998, page 4) note, it is the ` marvelous ambiguity of the worddevelopment'' that makes the concept so valuable as an entry point for critical analyses

into its workings and debates over its interpretation. Because of its multivalent and at

times contradictory character, interrogations into development and the ways that it is

enacted, understood, and contested, are vital. Since the early 1990s, antidevelopment

authors have provided powerful indictments of development discourse and its effects in

depoliticizing, disempowering, and destroying Third World cultures (Escobar, 1992;

1995; Sachs, 1992; Yapa, 1996a; 1996b). Although these analyses have proven useful in

unpacking the often racist, paternalistic nature of development, they have frequently

represented it as monolithic, homogeneous, and unidirectional, eliding the inherentcomplexities of the institutions, practices, and discourses involved. Moreover, such

portrayals tend to privilege national and transnational processes, while local actors

and organizations have often been relegated to the roles of passive victims or noble

resisters (for example, Escobar, 1999; Shiva, 1989).

A powerful, yet problematic, metaphor for development was supplied by James

Ferguson (1990) in his discursive and institutional analysis of regional development

in Lesotho. Drawing on Michel Foucault, Ferguson argues that development functions

as an `antipolitics machine', and that individual development projectsfor example,

`A people with our own identity': toward a cultural politics

of development in Ecuadorian Amazonia

Thomas PerreaultDepartment of Geography, 144 Eggers Hall, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-1020, USA;e-mail: [email protected] 12 June 2001; in revised form 26 August 2002

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2003, volume 21, pages 583 ^ 606

Abstract. In this paper I examine the cultural politics of international development among Ecuadorianindigenous federations. Many critiques, focused on the national or international scale, have portrayeddevelopment as monolithic, homogenizing, and depoliticized. However, when specific practices anddiscourses of development are examined, particularly among locally based rural peoples' organiza-tions, it becomes clear that development is a diverse process, and its meaning is highly contested. Iargue that, for Ecuadorian indigenous organizations, international development provides an idiom fornegotiating civil and resource rights. This process is demonstrated through an institutional ethnog-raphy of an indigenous federation in the Ecuadorian Amazon, which highlights the ways that thefederation uses the discourses of nationalist development and environmentalism in order to contestofficial understandings of citizenship and the nation.

DOI:10.1068/d339

(1) For example, when he was chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, SenatorJesse Helms famously said of international-development assistance that it was tantamount tothrowing money down ``foreign rat holes''.


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those aimed at improving agriculture, health care, or infrastructureare rarely

successful if judged by the merits of their putative intentions. However, they are

highly successful, he argues, in serving state power through other means: developmentprojects expand bureaucratic control over relatively remote portions of the countryside

and insert state authority more deeply into the lives of citizens, while simultaneously

depoliticizing inherently power-laden processes of directed transformations in liveli-

hoods, land rights, and governance. ``The `instrument-effect,' then, is two-fold: alongside

the institutional effect of expanding bureaucratic state power is the conceptual or

ideological effect of depoliticizing both poverty and the state'' (Ferguson, 1990,

page 256). Ferguson's analysis provides a powerful indictment of development planning

and its capacity to transform landscapes and discipline lives while simultaneously

deflecting criticism or politicized opposition. But, although this perspective helps usto understand the workings of power within the discourses and practices of develop-

ment at the transnational and national scales, his arguments remain problematic. First,

his assertion that development serves to expand state power merits careful scrutiny.

In the context of neoliberal restructuring and the contraction of Third World states, the

roles of nonstate actors must be accounted for, as transnational capital, nongovern-

mental advocacy networks, and a host of multilateral financial institutions are in many

cases as influential as state agencies in circumscribing livelihoods. Moreover, such

actors often produce spaces of governanceoil fields, regional development projects,

production zones in which state control may be severely limited (Watts, 2001). Indeed,we know very little about these new modes of governmentality, produced through the

work of nonstate development actors, institutions, and discourses.

Second, and of more central concern to my argument, Ferguson's contention that

development depoliticizes the causes and effects of socioeconomic transformation

demands reexamination. As I hope to demonstrate in this paper, when we turn our focus

to specific places and practices an alternative interpretation emerges. Development in

this sense is a highly contentious process that brings into contact a variety of cultural,

economic, and political struggles. In contrast to Ferguson's assertions, development, in

this sense, is highly political. For this reason, I adopt Donald Moore's (2000) metaphorof development as a ``crucible of cultural politics'', which emphasizes the role of develop-

ment in welding together and magnifying struggles that are simultaneously material and

symbolic. Such a view,

` conceives of development politics as a complex articulation whose outcomes are ...

historically contingent ... not rigidly determined by an underlying structure or dis-

cursive formation. Thus conceived, articulation offers a means for understanding the

emergent assemblages of development in historically and geographically specific

contexts'' (page 674).

Global discourses of development, critiqued by Ferguson, are inflected and reworked bylocal peoples' organizations. For Amazonian indigenous federations such as the one

examined in this paper, the social relations, practices, and discourses of international

development, within which these groups are deeply embedded, form an ideological

`crucible' in which resource rights, national belonging, and ethnic identities are articu-

lated and contested. The discourses of indigenous peoples' organizations perform what

Stuart Hall (1990; 1996a) identifies as the double task of articulation: to render explicit

certain identities, interests, and ideologies while simultaneously welding them to

specific political subjects. Crucially, a group's self-identification is not predetermined or

inevitable, but neither is it externally imposed or merely invented. Rather, it involves thepositioning of identities between different, often contradictory, subjectivities, a

process that ``draws upon historically sedimented practices, landscapes, and repertoires

of meaning, and emerges through particular patterns of engagement and struggle'' which

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are subject to constant renegotiation (Li, 2000, page 151). Seen thus, the discourses,

practices, and institutions of development form a conceptual terrain for contesting

official understandings of, for example, land rights and national belonging.This insight calls for careful examination of the ways in which developmentas

particular sets of discourses, practices, and ideals, conjoined in the form of `develop-

ment projects' is mediated and contested by specific actors. What are needed, then,

as Arturo Escobar (1995, page 13) calls for, are ethnographies of development. In this

paper, I am interested less in evaluating the `success' or otherwise of rural development

projects in Ecuador than I am in highlighting the meanings with which development is

inscribed, the ways it is contested, and the cultural work it performs. But what do we

mean when we use the term `development'? Michael Cowen and Robert Shenton (1996;

1998) observe that two distinct meanings for the term are often conflated in theliterature, frequently leading to conceptual and analytical confusion. On the one

hand, development is discussed in terms of processes of globalizing modernization

and capitalist integration. In this sense, development is seen as structural change,

enacted by states and faceless transnational institutions, and affecting whole societies.

This is development writ large. On the other hand, development may be discussed in

terms of directed interventions. In this sense, development takes the form of discreet

`development projects', enacted in particular places by specific organizations and indi-

viduals. This is development on the scale of the local and personal. As Anthony

Bebbington (2002) notes, these meanings are distinct, and the relationship betweenthem is neither determinant nor unidirectional. Although individual development inter-

ventions may contribute to broader-scale processes of structural change (for example,

agricultural projects that encourage market production and therefore capitalist integra-

tion), they may have a different effect entirely (for example, projects that improve rural

health care, access to education, or household food security). Importantly, however,

although both meanings of development are conceptually distinct, they each carry

important social implications, in the sense that structural change and directed inter-

ventions both act to shape cultural understandings, often in profound ways. Central to

this study is the fact that, although the experience of `development' may assume distinctmeanings in different contexts and at different scales, its importance to Ecuadorian

indigenous peoples as a symbolic and material referent is profound.

These issues are examined by Stacy Leigh Pigg (1992), in her study of development

discourse in Nepal, who notes that, ``In transforming both the terms in which social

identities are cast and the symbols that mark social difference, development has effects

that are cultural'' (page 492). As Pigg is careful to point out, development is not

experienced as an amorphous, abstract process, but rather is enacted through very

specific sets of institutions, practices, and social relationships. Insofar as develop-

mentwhether understood as structural change or as directed intervention (orboth) is centrally concerned with changing the way people live their lives, the institu-

tions, practices, and social relations it entails are inherently laden with power (Cooper

and Packard, 1998). Development is thus irreducibly political. At the same time,

however, normative ideologies of modernization, and the material effects of develop-

ment projects latrines, electricity, health clinics, commercial fertilizer, roadshave

profound consequences for the ways in which people come to understand themselves

and make sense of their world. Development in this sense forms a conceptual context

that shapes meanings, aspirations, and social understandings. Identities of individuals,

groups, and places are formed through the lens of, and in relationship to, the seductivepromise of development (Pigg, 1992). As Akhil Gupta (1998, page 11) notes, develop-

ment ` is about the economic position of a nation-state relative to others, but is

also crucially a form of identity in the postcolonial world.'' Identities thus formed

A people with our own identity' 585


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are continually produced and reproduced through processes of contestation and

negotiation. Development in this sense is irreducibly cultural. My goal in this paper,

then, is to examine the cultural politics of developmentthat is, the manner in which thepractices, discourses, and social relations of rural development become sites of contesta-

tion in which indigenous peoples' organizations challenge official understandings of

citizenship, ethnic identity, and national belonging. I am thus concerned with the ways

that indigenous identities, and the meanings with which they are imbued, ` are constitutive

of processes that ... seek to redefine social power'' (Alvarez et al, 1998, page 7).

I examine these processes through an institutional ethnography of an indigenous

organization in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Such an approach to development studies

can lend two valuable insights. First, a close examination of particular organizations

and their involvement with the practices, institutions, and discourses of development canilluminate the ways that those organizations mediate development, construct identities,

and contest power. These processes have been central to the ways that indigenous

organizations have helped to secure livelihood opportunities, land rights, and expanded

political participation for indigenous peoples in Ecuador. Second, institutional ethnog-

raphies can help us to understand better the experience of development itself, as a site of

material and symbolic struggleMoore's ``crucible of cultural politics''. If we are to take

seriously the role of indigenous peoples' organizations in enhancing both material live-

lihoods and democratic participation for marginalized rural communities, then we must

pay close attention to the ways that these organizations resist, refract, and at timesreproduce dominant narratives of development, modernization, and citizenship.

The paper continues with a brief discussion of the role of indigenous organizations in

the context of international development in Ecuador. This is followed by an examination

of the history of indigenous organizing in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and of the ways that

these organizations have been shaped by state programs of national, and nationalist,

development. These organizations were in many cases formed according to class-based,

corporatist models, and throughout their histories have had close contact with state

agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and church-based organizations

(Bebbington et al, 1992; Yashar, 1999). This discussion leads into an institutional ethnog-raphy of the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Napo (FOIN),(2) with a focus

on its participation in and statements about development projects.(3) I end this paper

with a discussion of FOIN's discursive constructions of citizenship and the nation,

(2) In August 1999, delegates to the FOIN congress voted to change the name of the federation tothe Federacio n de Organizaciones de la Nacionalidad Kichwa de Napo (Federation of Orga-nizations of the Kichwa [Quichua] Nationality of Napo, FONAKIN). This name changenowin effectwas not adopted until summer 2002, well after my field-research period had ended.I have therefore chosen to retain the name FOIN in this paper.

(3) The institutional ethnography presented here is based on eighteen months of field researchin Ecuador, conducted between 1998 and 2001. In order to investigate FOIN's participation indevelopment projects and its role in representing Quichua identities, I conducted semistructuredand open-ended interviews with FOIN personnel, as well as with representatives of NGOs, stateagencies, and funding institutions working in the region. I also carried out detailed documentanalysis in FOIN's archives, which date to the late 1960s, in order to reconstruct the federation'sorganizational and project history. Additionally, I attended a variety of FOIN events, includingroutine meetings, public demonstrations, a biannual congress, and the inaugural ceremonies fornewly elected leaders. At the same time that I was working with FOIN, I conducted field researchin one of the federation's constituent communities. This work involved household surveys, focus-group interviews with community residents, and in-depth interviews with community leaders.These surveys and interviews focused on agricultural production, the history of the community'sinvolvement with external development agencies, and its relations with broader-scale indigenousorganizations such as FOIN. This multisite approach allowed me to examine FOIN and its projectswithin a broader context of regional development and ethnic political mobilization.

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and of how these notions are contested through the institutions and practices of

intercultural bilingual education. I argue that development projects, coordinated

through state agencies and frequently funded by international donors, become sitesof ideological struggle through which indigenous organizations contest and negotiate

official understandings of the state, the nation, and citizenship.

Indigenous organizations and development in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Ecuadorian indigenous peoples' cultural and political organizations provide particularly

interesting institutional sites through which to examine the cultural workings of develop-

ment. Many of these organizations were formed in a historical context in which the

Ecuadorian state was engaged in a project of nationalist development, much of which

centered on policies of integrating the country spatially, economically, and culturally.From the outset, then, indigenous organizations such as FOIN have been involved

both in implementing development projects aimed at improving the livelihoods of

their constituent members, and in defending indigenous peoples' rights to citizenship,

resources, and territory. In this dual role, indigenous organizations have had to negotiate

complex institutional relationships with state agencies, national and international NGOs,

multilateral funding institutions, and, not infrequently, each other.

The multiform nature of indigenous organizations militates against viewing them

romantically, as sites of counterhegemonic resistance to state domination, or cynically,

as mere conduits through which state power and transnational power are exerted.Rather, I view indigenous organizations as institutional intersections, where complex,

overlapping, and at times contradictory social, cultural, and political processes conjoin.

This view necessitates attention to Sherry Ortner's (1995) call for ethnographically

`thick' interpretations of social movements, which avoid romanticizing and simplifying

inherently complex subjectivities. Examination of Ecuadorian indigenous organiza-

tions is thus compelling not only because of their potential for resistance and

progressive action, but also, and of particular importance to this study, because they

present an opportunity to interrogate ways in which divergent identities, discourses,

and politics articulate and are negotiated. Latin American indigenous peoples are notpristine, premodern cultures, nor have they been made triumphantly modern by the

transformational experience of development. Rather, as Escobar (1995, page 218) notes

in the case of Latin America more generally, their encounter with development can be

``characterized by complex processes of cultural hybridization encompassing manifold

and multiple modernities and traditions.'' It is this hybrid character of indigenous

organizations, or perhaps more precisely their ability to construct particularly useful

forms of hybridity as sites of cultural transition and articulation (Li, 2000; Yudice,

1998), that enables them to mediate relations of power and negotiate cultural meanings.

In contrast to Ne stor Garc|a Canclini's (1995) emphasis on the deterritorialization ofculture as a central element of cultural hybridity, however, Latin American indigenous

movements have engaged in creative forms of reterritorialization. As detailed below, the

linking of identity and territory, enacted materially and represented discursively in

manifold ways, has been central to the ability of indigenous organizations to consolidate

and sustain political mobilization (Perreault, 2003a; 2003b).

In Ecuador, indigenous peoples and their organizations are engaged in complex

reweavings of modernity, nationalism, and development, in which understandings of

traditional culture and place-based identities articulate with notions of citizenship

and the nation. This paper, then, is an attempt to arrive at a better understanding ofthe political strategies and forms of social organization through which indigenous peoples'

political and cultural organizations, in large part working through transnational networks,

negotiate processes of development and social transformation.



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Ethnic organizing and the Ecuadorian state

FOIN and most other indigenous organizations in Ecuador have their institutional roots

in state-led corporatist organizing in the 1960s and 1970s. During this period theEcuadorian state promoted particular forms of social organization and political partic-

ipation through which it channeled certain benefits. For indigenous peoples this meant

that low-interest credit, land rights, and technical support were available only through

organizational structures such as cooperatives or community associations. These organ-

izations were in turn supported by state-sanctioned unions and labor federations that

worked to organize peasant and indigenous communities throughout the country. The

formation of peasant and labor organizations was facilitated by state agencies such as

the Ecuadorian Institute for Agrarian Reform and Colonization, as well as by nonstate

development organizations, labor unions, the Catholic and Protestant churches andaffiliated organizations, and a variety of international agencies. The Ecuadorian Feder-

ation of Indians (FEI), affiliated with the Ecuadorian Communist Party, was active in

facilitating the organization of indigenous communities, as was the less-radical (but left-

leaning) National Federation of Campesino Organizations (Perreault, 2000; Perreault

et al, 1998). These groups worked to organize indigenous communities along class-based

lines, according to the corporatist model prevalent throughout Latin America during this

period (see Santos Granero and Barclay, 2000; Yashar, 1998; 1999).

Throughout Latin America, the corporatist model of development, rooted in the

prevailing modernization theories of the 1950s and 1960s (for example, Hoselitz, 1952;Rostow, 1960), was bound up with an understanding of modern citizenship rooted in a

homogenous mestizo nation (4) (Bonnett, 2000; Yashar, 1996). According to the ideol-

ogies of state-led economic development, indigenous peoples, whose distinct ethnic

identity was considered a hindrance to the development of a modern Ecuador, were

expected to adopt identities as citizens of the nation (Radcliffe, 1996; Radcliffe and

Westwood, 1996). This ideology was famously expressed in 1972 by the president of the

military government, General Guillermo Rodr|guez Lara, who in response to a

question regarding the state's national development plans and their potential effects

on the indigenous peoples of the Amazon regionasserted that, ``There is no moreIndian problem; we all become white when we accept the goals of the national culture''

(quoted in Whitten, 1976, page 268). The general's words, and the government's sub-

sequent passage of a Law of National Culture, posited an official ideology of cultural

homogenization which negated the validity and very existence of the country's indige-

nous and Afro-Ecuadorian populations. Thus, state conceptualizations of development

rested on ethnic erasure and cultural homogenization, deemed essential prerequisites

to national integration and advancement (Stutzman, 1981).

As was the case throughout Latin America, Ecuador's corporatist state model began

to erode in the 1980s, with worsening economic crises and indebtedness, and the globalascendancy of neoliberalism. With the return in 1979 of civilian government, the Ecua-

dorian state set about systematically dismantling populist social programs. Following the

dictates of neoliberal `stabilization' policies and structural adjustment programs pro-

moted by the World Bank and the IMF, civilian administrations reduced or eliminated

subsidies for food, fuel, and consumer goods; credit for peasant agriculture; and funding

(4) Mestizo is a term that denotes the racial admixture of indigenous and European peoples.Importantly, the `racial' meaning of the term cannot be separated from its ideological significance,which posits a racial hierarchy in which whites of European heritage occupy the highest position,followed by mestizosor mixed-race peoplesfollowed in turn by indigenous and Afro-Latinopeoples, who together occupy the lowest position. Thus, mestizaje, or the racial ideology associatedwith the mestizo ideal, is closely associated with the process of cultural improvement throughblanquiamento, or progressive whitening (see, inter alia, Smith, 1997; Stutzman, 1981).

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for education, welfare, and health care (Carrie re, 2001). Although indigenous peoples'

organizations lost their principal means of financial and technical support, they were no

longer restricted to class-based forms of organizing or identity representation. Meanwhile,the presence of international NGOs and aid agencies increased, partly in response to

declining state investment in social, agricultural, and environmental services, and partly

as a result of the growing reach of transnational advocacy networks during the 1980s

(Bebbington and Thiele, 1993; Keck and Sikkink, 1998). This has allowed for alternative

forms of political and cultural organizing, frequently focused on ethnic identity, and the

glocalization' of identity politicsthat is, the (re)construction of identities and organ-

izations rooted in local places (communities, territories), which are simultaneously global

in nature [that is, represented through, and in part forged by, national and transnational

networks, compare Erik Swyngedouw (1997a; 1997b)]. Indigenous organizations formedunder the paternalistic tutelage of the corporatist state have adapted themselves to new

political-economic conditions, reconstituting themselves organizationally and reasserting

their ethnic identities in various ways (Yashar, 1999).

The Ecuadorian state's political-economic transformations and its promotion of

particular organizational models, as well as the role of transnational networks, have

been profoundly influential in shaping the forms that indigenous organizing could take,

as well as the practical and discursive strategies that haveand have notbeen at their

disposal. This is not to argue, however, that indigenous organizations are merely reactive

to state policies or international advocacy groups. Rather, local indigenous organizationalpolitics are best understood through the careful analysis of specific practices and dis-

courses, and in the context of particular social relations and political-economic processes.

In the remainder of this paper I provide a fine-grained analysis of one indigenous

federation in the Ecuadorian Amazon, in an attempt to elucidate the ways in which it

negotiates processes of development and modernization for its members, and how, through

this process of mediation, it contests official understandings of citizenship and the nation.

An institutional ethnography of FOIN

Autoethnography and ethnic praxisIn her analysis of the New Chronicle, a 17th-century manuscript written in both Spanish

and Quechua by the Andean author Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Mary Louise Pratt

(1994) sheds light on what she refers to as, ` the intricate transcultural pragmatics of

communication under conquest'' (page 25). Pratt is specifically concerned to examine

the ways that subordinate groupsLatin American indigenous groups in both her case

and mineappropriate elements of dominant language, cultural codes, and objectifying

knowledge into their own discourse (and, I would add, into their own visual and

performative representations). This process, which Pratt terms `autoethnography', serves

as a counternarrative which subverts (though often indirectly) hegemonic representationsof subaltern peoples. She defines autoethnographic textsof which Guaman Poma's text

is the paradigmatic exampleas,

` text[s] in which people undertake to describe themselves in ways that engage with

representations others have made of them. Thus if ethnographic texts are those in

which European metropolitan subjects represent to themselves their others (usu-

ally their subjugated others), autoethnographic texts are representations that the

so-defined others construct in response to or in dialogue with those texts.

Autoethnographic texts are not, then what are usually thought of as autochtho-

nous or `authentic' forms of self-representation ... . Rather they involve a selectivecollaboration with and appropriation of idioms of the metropolis or conqueror.

These are merged or infiltrated to varying degrees with indigenous idioms



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to create self-representations intended to intervene in metropolitan modes of

understanding'' (page 28, emphasis in original).

FOIN's discourse, examined below, may be read as a form of autoethnography, indialogue with dominant narratives of nationalist modernization, international develop-

ment, and environmentalism. These narratives inform and structure the federation's

discursive representations of identity, citizenship, territory, and cultural rights. Thus, the

federation's statements should not be viewed as àuthentic' representations of timeless

indigenous identity or worldview, but nor do I wish cynically to suggest that they are

merely opportunistic essentialisms produced for the benefit of external sponsors.

Rather, I argue that FOIN's discourse serves to negotiate processes of development

and modernization, simultaneously appropriating and contesting elements of hege-

monic ideologies. As a mechanism for negotiating the cultural politics of development,FOIN's discourse is strategic, multiform, and often contradictory (Diskin, 1991).

Self-reflective discourse has a constitutive effect on indigenous politics inasmuch

as it may be used to legitimate claims to material resources or political rights. For

this reason, it is best viewed as what Pierre Bourdieu (1977, page 170) refers to as

an `àuthorized language''. Because this discourse is `ìnvested with the authority of a

group, the things it designates are not simply expressed but also authorized and

legitimated'' (page 78). It is in this way that claims made in statements produced by

FOIN and other indigenous federations, both for their own membership and for

external organizations, are legitimated, and gain authority by being a public, andpublicly recognized, discourse. This then brings into being not only indigenous political

claims, but indigenous identities as well, through the linking of ethnicity and place, and

the construction of a panregional Quichua nation. As Mark Rogers (1996, page 77)

recognizes, self-representation is not merely reflective of social reality, but is constitu-

tive of it `ìn a way that produces naturalized experiences of that which is represented''.

This is not to argue that the whole of Quichua identity can be reduced to the writings

and utterances of a few leaders. Those individuals who produced the statements

examined here are themselves a particular elite among Quichua peoplethey tend

to be more fluent in Spanish, have more formal education, and enjoy greater access tonational and international agencies than most other indigenous peoples in Ecuador. (5)

However, inasmuch as FOIN represents a focal point of lowland Quichua political and

cultural mobilization, these representations constitute a conceptual framework that

conditions the relationship between FOIN's members and those institutionsthe state,

markets, transnational development organizationsthat shape their lives. Because

FOIN mediates these relationships, both ideologically and materially, I contend that

its representations of identity matter a great deal.

From early in its existence FOIN has placed emphasis on three distinct but

complementary spheres of praxis. First, the federation works with state agencies andnational and international NGOs to channel development funds to Quichua communi-

ties for specific projects aimed at improving infrastructure, health care, education, or

agricultural production. Through its project oversight and budgetary management,

FOIN attempts to maintain control over the activities of NGOsboth national and

internationaloperating in its affiliated communities. In addition to its logistical,

material management of development interventions, the federation shapes the mean-

ings ascribed to such projects through, for example, speeches, documents, reports,

and educational workshops. In doing so, the federation plays an important role in

mediating the material and symbolic aspects of the development process and the waysin which specific interventions are experienced and interpreted by community members.

(5) Most of these leaders do, however, come from rural communities, and in many cases maintainfamilies and farms in those communities. On the role of indigenous elites, see Warren (1998).

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Second, the federation acts as a civil-rights advocate for indigenous residents of Napo

province, and, more abstractly, has played a crucial role in making citizenship claims

against the state. Particularly in its early years, FOIN served as an advocate for indig-enous individuals who had suffered civil-rights or human-rights violations at the hands of

state officials or local elites. The federation's archives for the 1970s contain numerous

letters written to local officials, national politicians, or business leaders, denouncing

arbitrary arrests, beatings, nonpayment of wages, or other abuses against indigenous

individuals in the region. Throughout its history, the federation has also played a central

role in advocating and facilitating the titling of lands claimed by Quichua communities.

In this capacity, FOIN continues to coordinate with state agencies and NGOs to

demarcate and legalize land claims, and serves as an important arbiter and advocate in

land disputes. When its demands have not been met, FOIN has led protests, asserting itspresence and interests through the occupation of public spaces. In all these ways, both

directly and indirectly, the federation has played a crucial role in challenging dominant,

exclusionary conceptions of citizenship and the state. Third, like other indigenous orga-

nizations in Ecuador, FOIN is engaged in what is often termed reivindicacion cultural

which, as Kay Warren (1998, page xii) explains, ` expresses the wide-ranging demands for

vindication, recognition, recovery, and rights as indigenous people''. It is in this role

that the federation engages most directly and self-consciously in the representation of

indigenous identities. It does this through a diversity of means, including discursive

representation (in speeches and written documents), visual representation (from wall-sized paintings to letterheads and logos), and the performance of cultural identity

through community workshops, protests, and music and dance groups (Perreault, 2001).

FOIN's hybrid position is of crucial importance to its ability to operate in these

three spheres. By managing development interventions and the experience of specific

projects for its members, the federation is acting as a modernizing institution,

mediating the relationship between Quichua communities, the state, and national

and international NGOs. In its role as advocate for indigenous political and resource

rights, FOIN is similarly appealing to enlightenment ideals of liberal democracy. The

federation legitimates its claims to development and citizenship rights not by erasingthe otherness of its constituency, but precisely by highlighting it and negotiating a

space for it within the nation (see Conklin and Graham, 1995). Central to this role

are FOIN's discursive representations of Quichua identity, in which the federation

positions itself as the mediator of the experience of development and modernity.

The following discussion of FOIN's organizational history and discourse is orga-

nized chronologically, beginning with the establishment of the federation in 1969.

It traces the discursive shifts and ideological positions of the federation through the

period of military government and state-led corporatist development during the 1970s,

the return to democracy and increasing internationalization of development in the1980s, and the growing importance of environmental interests and neoliberal restruc-

turing in the 1980s and 1990s. Although it is vital to consider the influence that these

processes have had on shaping the federation's actions, one must also recognize that

they may not be easily divided into discreet periods, nor may FOIN's discourse be

simply `read off ' broader scale political and economic factors. Rather, the federation's

practices and discourse are complex and frequently contradictory. In what follows, I

have attempted to contextualize FOIN's actions and discourse through discussion of

relevant ideologies, institutions, policies and practices of development, and the ways

that these have intersected in the Ecuadorian Amazon.



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Organizational history and discourse

In 1969, the federation was established in the Amazonian town of Tena as the Provincial

Federation of Campesino Organizations of Napo (FEPOCAN), with the assistance ofthe state-sanctioned syndicalist organization the National Federation of Campesino

Organizations (FENOC, see figure 1).(6) FENOC and its affiliated organizations played

a central role in training, organizing, and funding the federation in its initial stages.

Despite its syndicalist origins, and the fact that FENOC remained a major supporter of

the federation throughout the 1970s, FEPOCAN's leaders soon recognized that their

interests as indigenous peoples could not easily be mapped onto the class-based

concerns of their primary sponsors. The federation sought to differentiate itself, while

maintaining its strategic alliances, and by 1973 FEPOCAN documents began referring

(6) FENOC was affiliated with the Ecuadorian Center for Class-based Organizations (CEDOC),which in turn was affiliated with the Latin American Campesino Federation. Until 1967, CEDOCwas the Ecuadorian Confederation of Christian Organizations, and was heavily influenced by theGerman Christian Democrats, retaining an explicitly Christian orientation into the late 1960s.FENOC has since reorganized and renamed itself as the National Federation of Campesino andIndigenous Organizations (FENOCIN), and is currently a major (though not the most prominent)national-level indigenous organization in Ecuador.

City or town

Road

River

Elevationb 600 m

0 50 km

0 100 km

Figure 1. Upper Napo river basin, northeastern Ecuador.

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to the organization as the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Napo (FOIN),

explicitly identifying itself as an ethnically based rather than a class-based organization.

The transition to ethnic politics was, however, a slow one, and although federationleaders sought to construct an identity for the organization as a representative of

indigenous interests in the region they maintained close ties with FENOC, and

expressed solidarity with working-class struggles. Throughout much of the 1970s,

FOIN documents continued to identify the federation as the Peasant Federation of

Napo (Federacion Campesina de Napo), and made reference to the `indigenous class'

(clase ind|gena), terms that had largely disappeared from FOIN documents by the early

1980s.

Throughout the 1970s the federation was occupied with three overriding concerns:

first, legalizing lands claimed by Quichua communities in the upper Napo river basin,or Alto Napo, according to the requirements stipulated by agrarian reform legislation;

second, obtaining legal recognition for indigenous community associations that lacked

formal incorporation, so that they could be recruited as member communities; and

third, defending and promoting the civil and human rights of indigenous peoples in the

region. Much of the motivation for indigenous communities in the Alto Napo to seek

legal title to their land claims stemmed from the very real threat of colonists from

the highlands, coast, and elsewhere in the Amazon, as well as from the incursions of

hacienda owners, oil companies, commercial agriculture, and the military. Under

Ecuador's agrarian reform legislation, uncultivated landsmostly forested lands ofthe Amazon or on the coastwere considered `tierras bald|as' (barren or fallow lands),

and were made available by the state for colonization. As a result, many indigenous

communities, whose land claims were suddenly vulnerable to invasions by colonists,

turned to the federation for assistance in negotiating the unfamiliar and intimidating

world of state bureaucracy necessary for obtaining legal title to their lands. The

federation in turn worked closely with the state land-titling agency, the Ecuadorian

Institute for Agrarian Reform and Colonization (IERAC), which provided technical

assistance, training, and logistical and institutional support to the federation.

During this period, the federation produced numerous written statements express-ing its political, cultural, and developmental aims. Many of these statements, intended

as press releases or as part of reports to its members, donors, state agencies, or other

indigenous organizations, made explicit claims to land and resource rights. Then, as

now, the discursive linking of identity and place formed an important strategy for

voicing resource claims and defending community land rights. This is evident in a

1975 document denouncing the granting of land title to colonists by IERAC, which

states, ``The land is ours and always will be by rights acquired through centuries of

its use; the forest is ours, it is the temple of our ancestors and our God''. (7) Similarly, in

a 1978 document, in which FOIN denounces the creation of INCRAE (NationalInstitute of Colonization of the Ecuadorian Amazonian Region) the federation argues,

` As an Indian people, we are ... inheritors and executors of the cultural values

of our millennial peoples of Ecuador and therefore the government cannot protect

our culture by promoting our incorporation into national life, if at the same time the

state does not guarantee nor defend the traditional settlements of the indigenous

peoples of the region.'' (8)

(7) From an untitled 1975 FOIN archival document (FOIN's archives are housed in its offices at

Calle Augusto Rueda 242, Tena, Napo, Ecuador).(8) This statement is taken from an untitled FOIN archival document dated 27 February 1978. Thesame statement also appears in another document entitled ` Acta de la Segunda Asamblea de laFederacio n de Organizaciones Ind|genas del Napo `FOIN', San Jose de Coca, 6 y 7 de abril del 1979''.



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The statement goes on to say,

` For some the Oriente continues to be a MYTH without knowing that we are the

millennial owners of the land; the land is the Indian. The Indian is that same land.The Indian is the owner of the land with property titles or without them.'' (9)

The federation is thus appealing to the state's development plans to incorporate the

Amazon and its peoples into national society, economy, and politics (Radcliffe, 1996;

Radcliffe and Westwood, 1996; Whitten, 1981; 1985), while simultaneously claiming the

rights guaranteed indigenous peoples as citizens of the nation. Crucially, the federation

is making this claim based not on ethnic erasure and homogenizationas the state's

modernist vision would have dictatedbut rather on ethnic difference within, rather

than outside of, the nation. In calling for greater participation in state politics and

fuller inclusion in state-led development, the federation is challenging the traditionallypaternalistic relationship between the Ecuadorian state and indigenous peoples. As such,

FOIN is calling for a reconfiguration of official notions of citizenship, a reconfiguration

that is in large part rooted in the conceptual imbrication of identity and territory. Thus,

the concept of land rights and, more abstractly, territory is invoked not only as an

economic resource, but as integral to lowland Quichua understandings of culture and

identity. These arguments, however, are made within the conceptual frame of national,

and nationalist, development: recognizing the link between indigenous identity and land

rights is a necessary first step to realizing national development goals. Here, then, the

federation is positioning itself as aligned with the state's development objectives,constructing an identity as modern citizens of the nation.

An even more explicit expression of Quichua peoples as modern, developmentalist,

and progressive is apparent in a 1977 FOIN document discussing the aims of the

federation:

` The Indigenous Federation of Napo trusts and hopes that the National Revolu-

tionary Government will assist with agricultural development programs. The Indig-

enous Federation preaches, Brother: WORK YOUR LAND, THE LAND PRODUCES

MONEY, with money educate your child well, with money you will be able to have:

good housing, food, and good health. With money: your children may becomeprofessionals; and with that you will have gained much.'' (10)

On the surface, this statementfrom an internal document, and thus intended to be read

by or to other FOIN membersappears to be a clear attempt to appease the devel-

opmentalist tendencies of the military government, whose approval FOIN required to

remain in existence. At the same time, however, these sentiments express inescapable

values at the core of FOIN's existence. FOIN's objectives and organizational structure

are rooted squarely in modernity, and it is only from its self-consciously modern and

modernizing subject position that FOIN is able to construct an idealized past, or to

naturalize the linkage between ethnicity and place. This notion of cultural progressionis similarly conveyed in a 1974 letter regarding a proposed agricultural development

project. After confidently asserting that in the second year of the project the federation

expects to harvest 2.5 million quintales (some 250 million pounds) of manioc from 5000

hectares of land, the letter goes on to say,

(9) The assertion that ` for some the Oriente continues to be a MYTH'' is a reference tothe statement in 1949 by President Galo Plaza Lasso, declaring that efforts to find oil in the

Amazonand thus a new source of national wealthhad come to naught. ` The Oriente is amyth'', the president famously concluded. He would be proven wrong two decades later.(10) This is from a FOIN archival document dated 1977, and titled simply ``Federacio n deOrganizaciones Ind|genas de Napo (FOIN), Tena''. Emphasis in the original.

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` But what is important is not to have planted so much manioc, but rather the

motivation that it caused to accelerate the process of transformation of the virgin

forest into cultured lands [tierras cultas] orderly reforested with selected species.''(11)

The use of the term `tierras cultas' (cultured lands) is significant here, for it refers

not merely to occupied or cultivated lands, but to lands that have been culturally

improved through the application of scientific management and capital investment

that is, through modernization and conformity to nationalist ideals. This, then, is

an appeal to the racial ideology of mestizaje (the racial ideology associated with

the mestizo ideal) extrapolated to resource development (Rahier, 1998; Smith, 1997;

Stutzman, 1981). During the 1970s indigenous organizations in the Ecuadorian Amazon

sought to legitimize their claims to resources and political rights by appealing to

dominant ideologies of the military government, a process that involved representingindigenous identities as modern and modernizing and as capable of managing

resources according to state developmentalist objectives. To a large extent these repre-

sentations reflect the types of indigenous organizations, such as cooperatives and peasant

associations, fostered under military rule. As Rogers (1996) argues, however, appeal to

transitional, progressive culture appears to be central to the ways that Amazonian

Quichua peoples negotiate their place in Ecuadorian society, and may be seen in FOIN's

agricultural development initiatives, community-scale agrarian transformations, and in

the very structure and function of indigenous political organizations.

This ideal was, until recently, visually represented by a painting on the wall ofFOIN's conference room in its headquarters in Tena (figure 2, over). The painting

showed five men side by side, the one furthest to the left naked and holding a spear.

Next to him was another figure, also with a spear, but wearing a loincloth, and to his

right a barefoot figure in shorts and a T-shirt, who appeared to be hiding his spear

behind his back. To his right was a man in the most typical dress worn by men in the

Alto Napo today: shoes, slacks, and a short-sleeve, button-down shirt with the collar

open. His spear is on the ground, behind him. On the far right of the painting was a

man in a suit and tie, holding a briefcase at his side. The painting plainly represented

Quichua peoples in a process of cultural transition, from naked auca(12)

to civilizedcitizena process in which FOIN plays a central mediating role. This image vividly

illustrated the idea that the lowland Quichua (re)present themselves as culturally,

spatially, and historically intermediate in the transition from unacculturated, Amazo-

nian savages to national Andean (mestizo) society (Hudelson, 1981; Rogers, 1995).

By discursively positioning themselves as intermediary and transitional, Quichua indi-

viduals and organizations may negotiate relations of power within what Jean Muteba

Rahier (1998) identifies as Ecuador's ` racial/spatial order''. This image, painted

over in 1999 when FOIN remodeled its offices,(13) vividly expressed the process of

(11) This letter is located in the 1974 FOIN archives, and is addressed to the Minister of Agriculture.It was sent by Grupo Cero, an Ecuadorian development NGO working with FOIN on this project.(12) Auca is a Quichua term meaning savage. It has been adopted by mestizo society in Ecuador asa pejorative term for lowland indigenous peoples, and in particular for the Huaoranithe ethnicgroup least integrated into national society. Lowland Quichua occasionally use the term to denoteAmazonian indigenous groups perceived to be less advanced, modernized, and acculturated thanthemselves.(13) It is likely that some of FOIN's personnel, viewing as problematic the ideological content of thepainting and its inappropriateness to contemporary indigenous politics, requested that it be paintedover. Indeed, a FOIN representative told me as much. It should be noted, however, that a painting ofa shaman performing a healing rituala representation of `traditional' Quichua cultural practiceswas similarly painted over. Moreover, before the painting was removed, another FOIN member toldme that the painting represented the Quichua transition from auca to modern citizen, going so far asto indicate the stage along the trajectory that lowland Quichua currently occupied.



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blanquiamientoprogressive whiteningthe nationalist ideal expressed in 1973 by

General Rodr|guez Lara, in which indigenous people become white by accepting thegoals of national culture. This, then, is culture as process: modernization through

ethnic erasure. This painting may be read as autoethnography par exellence, in which

FOIN visually represents itself in response to, and through the conceptual lens of,

dominant ideologies of modernization and ethnic transformation. As with the New

Chronicle of Guaman Poma examined by Pratt (1994), the painting is not a na|ve

expression of the world as federation leaders believe it is or ought to be, but rather is

an engagement with what FOIN leaders interpreted as the hegemonic narratives of

nationalist development, and the place of indigenous peoples within them. This paint-

ing also recalls George Yudice's (2001, page xv) insight that cultural hybridity involvesthe satisfaction of basic needs, ``[with]in a system of production and consumption not

of one's choosing''.

During the 1980s FOIN's practical and discursive focus began to shift from an

emphasis on modernist development to a more explicitly indigenist politics, a shift

that can in large part be traced to four interrelated processes. The first crucial factor

was the end of the military government, which stepped down and allowed democratic

elections in 1979. This created new political and discursive spaces which, while still

limited, offered alternatives to the syndicalist forms of organizing sanctioned under the

military government. A second factor was the rise of regional and national indig-enous organizations, which, especially in the Oriente, were increasingly politicized.

Between 1976 and 1986 four new regional organizations were formed in the Ecuadorian

Figure 2. A painting which was formerly on the FOIN office wall illustrating the cultural pro-gression from `naked savage' to `modern citizen'.

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Amazon, and the formation in 1980 of a regional umbrella groupthe Confederation

of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazonprovided a coordinating body

through which regional interests could be voiced. Also formed in 1980 was a nationalcouncil of indigenous nationalities, which in 1986 was reorganized as the Confederation

of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE)which today is a major political

actor in Ecuador and arguably one of the most influential indigenous organizations on

the continent.(14) Third, the increasing presence of international NGOs in the region,

primarily concerned with environmental conservation, rural development, or indigenous

rights, diversified the set of organizational relationships with which FOIN was involved,

and provided new sources of funding and technical support, as well as new ideological

rationales for social organization and resource management (Brysk, 2000; Keck and

Sikkink, 1998). Fourth, the rise of neoliberalism within and beyond Ecuador radicallyaltered the context within which social groups mobilized politically and culturally.

Political reforms meant that the state no longer delimited the organizational forms

that social mobilization could take. At the same time, however, the reduction or

elimination of state funding for agricultural assistance, welfare, and other forms of

social assistance meant that indigenous organizations and their constituent members

both lost a principal source of financial and technical support, and became increasingly

vulnerable to impoverishment (Bebbington et al, 1993; Yashar, 1998; 1999).

In the 1980s FOIN consolidated its support base, and in the process increased its

capacity to facilitate a diverse array of development activities within its membercommunities, including projects in land titling, infrastructure construction, agricultural

development and commercialization, health, and education. Increasing confidence and

organizational capacity on the part of FOIN, its base communities, and the broader

indigenous movement allowed FOIN to articulate its desires for a form of development

appropriate to Quichua cultural values. In this way access to resources, funds, political

rights, and territorycentral to FOIN's overall strugglebecame contested terrains, both

materially and symbolically. This is exemplified in a FOIN report from 1980, which states:

` Effectively, the FOIN movement, as an historical fact is the bearer of values

radically opposed to those that align with capitalist culture and civilization.The value of human dignity and of security.

The value of justice and equality.

The dynamic conviction of having everyone together and fraternally united in the task

of constructing a communal society as we indigenous natives want and understand.

Profound aspiration of an effective liberation, that in no case means a simple

change of patron, but rather the clear possibility of assuming all the responsibilities

of human, social, personal, and collective development.

In summary, the daily fight without truce to overcome, to achieve liberation,

to have, to know, that there should be no more elements of domination, norexploitation, but rather liberty.

In this manner FOIN has inserted the best values of the indigenous movement

and of other progressive sectors.''(15)

(14) There are a variety of other national-level indigenous organizations in Ecuador which are notaligned with CONAIE, but have a more class-based orientation (FENOCIN, FEI) or religiousorientation (such as FEINE, which is a national-level federation of evangelical indigenous organ-izations). These organizations, however, play a less prominent role in national and internationalindigenous politics than CONAIE, have little influence in Amazonia, and with the exception of

FENOCIN (previously known as FENOC) have had very little contact with FOIN.(15) From a FOIN archival document entitled, ``Informe que presenta el comite ejecutivo de FOINal V Congreso Ordinario de delegados llevado en la comunidad ind|gena Limoncocha primero de abrilde mil novecientos ochenta'', dated 1 April 1980, (emphasis in original).



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It is clear, then, that FOIN's struggle is not only one of attaining the material benefits

of development (though these, of course, are fundamental to FOIN's goals), but is also

aimed at transforming the structures of domination under which indigenous peopleshave been subjugated. In this sense, the qualities of liberation and human dignity are as

important as equal access to material resources. Indeed, access to those material

resources signifies the increased political and cultural rights to which FOIN aspires

(Bebbington, 1996; 2000). FOIN's discursive rejection of capitalism and claims to

collective rights seem to stand in stark contrast to the imagery discussed above of

FOIN as modernizing and developmentalist. It is important to acknowledge, however,

that these are not mutually exclusive, contradictory aspects of Quichua identity, but

rather two complementary elements of indigenous politics. As Hall (1996b, pages 3 ^ 4)

points out, ``identities are never unified and, in late modern times, increasingly frac-tured and fragmented; never singular but multiply constructed across different, often

intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices, and positions.'' FOIN's discursive

representations of identity, in this sense, are not stable, unchanging, and timeless

essences but may be seen as positionings, reflecting historically constituted cultural

understandings and relations of power.

During the 1980s FOIN continued to work with IERAC to legalize community land

claims in the Alto Napo, and worked with other state agencies and national and

international NGOs on a variety of development initiatives. With financial, technical,

and logistical support from these donors, FOIN carried out projects aimed at agricul-tural production and marketing, health care, and education. The federation entered into

funding relationships with Oxfam, Cultural Survival, the Inter-American Foundation,

and the World Wildlife Fund, and environmental conservation projects soon became a

vital source of funding for FOIN. By the mid-1980s and continuing into the present,

environmental groups, concerned with the preservation of tropical rainforest environ-

ments, provided a new idiom and institutional structure through which indigenous

organizations such as FOIN could make claims to natural resources and territorial

rights. Crucially, these claims were made largely on the grounds of ethnic distinctiveness,

and of the discursive linking of identity and place which posits indigenous peoples asuniquely positioned to protect tropical rainforests (Brosius, 1997). In making these argu-

ments indigenous groups and their environmentalist allies are not rejecting development

and modernization, but rather are calling for environmentally sustainable forms of

development based on culturally specific values and practices (compare Watts, 1998).

Rainforest conservation and sustainable development thus provide a conceptual `middle

ground' on which the interests of Amazonian indigenous peoples articulate with those of

northern environmentalists (Conklin and Graham, 1995).

This idea is evoked in a letter from FOIN to the Dutch organization Humanistic

Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries. The letter requests funding forthe federation's congress in 1992, the same year as the famed `Earth Summit' in Rio de

Janeiro, perhaps the high-water mark of international concern for tropical-rainforest

protection.(16) The letter states, ``We believe that the best investment for protecting the

global resources, which our tropical rainforest produces for the whole planet, is to

invest in the strengthening of our institutions and to support the indigenous people of

the rainforest who love and sincerely respect our Pacha Mama (Mother Earth).'' Such

direct appeal to the international environmentalism of the early 1990s was also evident

in the logo that appeared on the stationery of PUMAREN,(17) a resource-management

(16) This letter appears in the 1992 FOIN archives, and is written in English. It was translated fromSpanish by a volunteer with the group Global Exchange.(17) PUMAREN is an acronym for Programa de Uso y Manejo de Recursos Naturales (Project forManagement and Use of Natural Resources).

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and conservation project FOIN administered from 1988 to 1998, with funding from

the US NGOs Cultural Survival and the World Wildlife Fund (Macdonald, 1999;

Perreault, 2000). Below a drawing of a tree and a deer were written the words RegionAmazonica, Pulmon Verde del Mundo (Amazon region, green lung of the world). These

images posit indigenous peoples as particularly well placed to attend to the environ-

mental management necessitated by international conservation agendas. By linking

popular international environmental slogans and easily recognizable images to a

community-based resource-management project, PUMAREN's logo served to natu-

ralize the relationship between identity, place, and nature (that is, between Quichua

people and the Amazon rainforest) and to appeal to the concerns of international

environmentalism.

This imagery was of similar importance in a statement made to me by a formerFOIN president in discussing the linkage between territorial concerns and resource

use. He asserted,

` In regard to territories we have them more or less defined, but there are certain

problems, no? Now we are trying to produceproduce, but without destroying the

forest. We care for the forest. An exploitation of resources, but rationally, sustain-

ably, more attractively. What I think is that wethe indigenous peoplesby nature

are ecologists. We have defended nature, we have cared for nature, since birth, by

inheritance ... we are the caretakers of the forest, no?''

The former president went on to say,` For us, the term, the concept of territory, is good, to manage our resources. In

general, political terms, this is what we are waiting for: a territory to manage as a

people with our own identity ... within our territory. But this is not to say that we

want to be another state, no? Within our territory, we want for our culture to

strengthen according to our indigenous worldview'' (interview conducted in Tena,

5 June 1998).

In this statement, the former leader eloquently links Quichua territorial and resource

rights claims with the essentialized characteristics of indigenous peoples as `caretakers

of the forest', legitimating the former by appealing to the latter. As Roberto Santana(1995) points out, this type of environmental rhetoric is not a call for environmental

management or planning per se, but rather is an ideological and symbolic strategy for

claims making. In this way, discursive positionings serve to articulate indigenous

identities with nature and place as a way of legitimating resource and political claims.

Within the federation's discourse, modernizing values and development are closely

linked to notions of environmental management, identity, and citizenship. Similar

sentiments were expressed by FOIN's then president, in discussing the federation's

role in community development and its connection with a major development program

funded by the World Bank and aimed at indigenous peoples:` Damn, the destruction [of nature] ... . But in this we are promoting care for the

forests, to reforest, because ... it is disappearing, no? Then, while there is forest,

the rivers, we will continue recovering [culturally]. Then, this is the only fear that

we have as Quichua peoples, as indigenous organizations here. We always main-

tained the forest, and for that reason ... we hope to improve living conditions,

perhaps with these projects. Reforestation is one of the ideas they have'' (interview

conducted in Tena, 5 February 1999).

These statements by FOIN leaders connect notions of development, progress, and

modernization with international environmental discourses of rainforest protection.In this view, both development and forest conservation are represented as integral to

Quichua identity. Economic development, in this perspective, is something that indige-

nous peoples merit as citizens of the nation, whereas environmental conservation



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emanates naturally from Quichua culture and simultaneously preserves the conditions

necessary for social and cultural reproduction. Such statements underscore the sense of

progressivism pervasive in much of FOIN's discourse. Importantly, however, the sym-bolic capital of place identity that Amazonian indigenous peoples possess does not

exist in a political vacuum. Indeed, indigenous organizations such as FOIN must still

maneuver through a profoundly racist labyrinth of state bureaucracies and sedimented

ethnic ideologies. By invoking the values and moral authority that inhere in inter-

national environmentalisms, indigenous groups are able to form strategic alliances

with organizations operating at broader spatial and political scales. Indeed, the partic-

ipation of indigenous organizations in transnational advocacy networks has helped

to restructure the scales of power, not only in Ecuador, but throughout much of

Latin America (Perreault, 2000). From its thoroughly modern subject position, FOINmediates the symbolics of indigenous identity, of what it means to be Quichua in the

context of a `modern' national society that is rapidly globalizing and yet in which stark

inequalities and racist ideologies persist.

Contesting the nation: citizenship, territory, and identity

For Ecuadorian indigenous organizations, the practice and discourse of development

cannot be separated from questions of political participation, governance, and citizen-

ship. In this sense, development does not depoliticize processes of social transformation,

as Ferguson (1990) suggests, but in fact operates in precisely the opposite manner.Development and its interpretation and implementationwhat it means, how it is

done, by whom, and to whomare rendered crucial terrains of ideological struggle

(compare Van Ausdal, 2001). It is in large part through the idiom of development that

indigenous political and cultural organizations in Ecuador articulate identities and

ideological positions, and contest official conceptualizations of citizenship and the

nation (Radcliffe, 1996; 1999; Radcliffe and Westwood, 1996). Though crucial as

a mechanism for forging state integration and national belonging, the meaning

of citizenship is always open to negotiation, and as such cannot be reduced to a set of

legal entitlements granted by the state (Schild, 1998). Rather, it is more usefullyconceived of as an actively constructed identity, which binds political rights with

diverse subject positions (Mouffe, 1992; see also Brown, 1997; Laclau and Mouffe,

1985). How, then, does this process of construction occur? What are the cultural,

economic, and environmental terrains in which this struggle takes place? What is the

role of development in this process?

In the case of Ecuadorian indigenous politics the answer to these questions may be

found, at least in part, in the practices and discourses of organizations, such as FOIN,

that have endeavored to construct new political identities within, rather than outside of,

the nation, thereby broadening the traditionally narrow view of political inclusion inEcuador (compare Warren, 1998). In this sense, FOIN's project, and that of Ecuador's

broader indigenous movement, may be characterized as attempting to deepen Ecuador-

ian democracy, and in so doing to redefine the terms of the political itself (Dagnino,

1998). FOIN's contemporary discourse must be viewed within the context of recent

national debate over plurinationalism (plurinacionalidad)an ideological position pro-

moted by CONAIE and most other indigenous organizations in Ecuador that posits

the country as composed of several distinct nationalities (nacionalidades) and peoples

(pueblos). Notions of indigenous territories, citizenship, and political autonomy are

embedded within this contentious debate (Lucero, 2003; Selverston-Scher, 2000). Asdebates in Ecuador over plurinationalism gained prominence in the 1990s, reaching

a peak during the 1997 ^ 98 constitutional assembly, local and regional indigenous

organizations adopted this discourse in an attempt to construct new territorially based

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identities, challenging dominant conceptions of citizenship and the nation. Central to

these questions is the definition in the senses of both conceptually identifying and

spatially demarcatingof indigenous nationalities, a process that frequently involvesthe discursive and material linking of territory, citizenship, or nationality to other aspects

of Quichua life. Cultural demarcations of nacionalidades and pueblos (distinct groups

within a given nationality) correspond to clearly defined territorial claims, and are

legitimated by the granting of collective rights to indigenous peoples under the new

constitution (CONAIE, 1999; 2001). One former FOIN leader, who is currently involved

with bilingual education in Napo province, made the linkage this way in answer to a

question about the goals of bilingual education:

` Education should strengthen the Quichua nationality, here in Napo. Strengthen its

organization, its culture, its social structure, economically, geographically, no? Withall its territory. This, then, is the goal of Intercultural-Bilingual Education.''

Interviewer: ` Then, what is a nationality? What is the difference between a

nationality, and a people [pueblo]?''

` For us, the nationality is a people who have their own culture, their own territory,

who manage their own organizational structure, according to their reality. And live

within an independent territory between nature and mankind. The power of nature

together with the abilities of man, this is part of a nationality. El pueblo is simply

the people who live, who inhabit. El pueblo does not take into account the role

of language, the role of values, the role of territory. Nationality is somethingmore structured. For this reason, we say that Ecuador is not a nation. It is a state

with a national project. Then, `state' means that there are many people, many

people, many pueblos, but within it there can be various nationalities'' (interview

conducted in Tena, 27 January 1999).

Here, then, the speaker embeds the notions of territory, culture, and political organiza-

tion within the contested notion of nationality, while representing Quichua culture as

organically tied to Amazonian nature. In this way, he is challenging official conceptu-

alizations of the state and the `nation' and, by extension, citizenship, signaling an

expanded and evolving view of these concepts. Significantly, these statements weremade during a conversation about intercultural-bilingual education. Of central impor-

tance to my analysis is the fact that intercultural-bilingual education programs are in

many respects perceived, experienced, and discussed as a form of development project by

Quichua community members (Perreault, 2003a). These programs are directed interven-

tions, coordinated through the state and supported (in part) by transnational funding

organizations. In contrast to bilingual education programs in the Peruvian highlands,

which have been perceived by Quechua-speaking residents as limiting their ability to

participate fully in national society (Garc|a, 2003), such programs in Ecuador carry

special significance for FOIN and its members as a source of empowerment, capacitybuilding, and cultural self-determination. But intercultural-bilingual education carries

more than symbolic significance. It is a formally institutionalized site of indigenous

cultural and political organization, which has expanded its influence spatially to involve

Quichua communities throughout the region, and has also contributed in significant

ways to the empowerment of the indigenous population. Thus, as is the case with

FOIN, intercultural-bilingual education is simultaneously a symbolic and material

site of organizational strengthening and consolidation that has allowed Quichua peoples

of the Alto Napo to challengeboth discursively and materiallyofficial notions of

territory and the nation.



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Conclusions

The view presented here is necessarily partial. The whole of lowland Quichua cultural

identity cannot be reduced to the statements of a handful of FOIN leaders. A closereading of FOIN's discourses does, however, provide a useful lens through which to

view the ways that the federation mediates processes of development and cultural

transformation. Dominant ideologies of democracy and citizenship in Ecuador have

failed to create a sense of inclusion and participation among popular sectors such as

indigenous groups, a fact that has contributed to an increase in ` symbolic political

participation through populist, non-parliamentary politics'' (de la Torre, 1997, page 15).

As Carlos de la Torre points out, citizenship in Ecuador has been narrowly concep-

tualized in terms of voting rights and the limited (and decreasing) granting of state

benefits (see also Lucero, 2003; Yashar, 1999). Though the constitutional reform of 1998sought to include indigenous groups and Afro-Ecuadorians in the political process to a

greater extent than was the case previously, in fact this reform has been largely

cosmetic and has done little to address the entrenched political and economic power

of Ecuador's oligarchy. This condition has only worsened in the context of Ecuador's

ongoing political and economic crisis, a fact that was never more apparent than during

nationwide protests in January, 2000, and again in January and February, 2001. As in

previous demonstrations, indigenous peoples led by CONAIE, along with other indig-

enous, student, and labor organizations, took to the streets to protest IMF-imposed

economic austerity measures. These protests, and the economic deterioration that ledto them, called into question the institutions of Ecuadorian democracy, and the state's

ability to represent and defend the interests of its own people. In large measure, the

protests challenged the state's conceptualization of the nation, and were an attempt to

renegotiate the terms of citizenship itself, of what it means to be Ecuadorian in the

context of neoliberal reregulation of the state. These events throw into sharp relief

the structural violence of deeply rooted social inequity, and the need for careful

analyses of the ways that membership in the nation is contested and negotiated.

I have argued here that the discourses, practice, and institutions of development are

crucial sites for the articulation of symbolic and material struggles. Moreover, it isthrough the very idiom of development that indigenous organizations such as FOIN

contest dominant and exclusionary understandings of national belonging. FOIN's

discourse and praxis are aimed in large part at constructing a regional identity, rooted

in the spatial parameters of ethnic territory and anchored by a shared Quichua cultural

tradition. But to do this FOIN must operate from a fully modern subject position

interacting with state agencies, national NGOs, and transnational networks of develop-

ment, human rights, and environmental organizations. In the contemporary ideological

context of plurinationalism in Ecuador, to be a modern Quichua is to have a regional

identity as an indigenous nationality, produced through economic development andpolitical organization within (rather than outside of) the nation-state. FOIN's construc-

tions of identity, produced within the context of development and modernization, are

largely aimed at asserting land claims and political rights for their constituent members,

and in so doing attempt to redefine official understandings of citizenship and national

belonging. Importantly, however, the federation's engagement with Ecuadorian nation-

alism and state-led modernization is not a unitary position of resistance. Although the

federation's discourse has at times been oppositional, it has, in other contexts, been

conciliatory and accepting, even embracing, of the nationalist project. Within this con-

text, the discourses, practices, and institutions of development play central structuringroles, providing a multiform ideological frame within which the federation negotiates

processes of social transformation and contests official understandings of citizenship and

the nation. Although the ideologies, institutions, and practices of development do not

602 T Perreault


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determine what indigenous identities are, they do condition the context of those identities,

and the language through which they are represented.

As I have demonstrated in this paper, FOIN's constructions of identity, citizenship,and nation may be read as a form of what Pratt (1994) refers to as àutoethnography':

appropriations of, and responses to, dominant narratives and objectifying knowledges.

As with Guaman Poma's New Chronicle, the statements and images examined here are

not na|ve representations of the way FOIN believes the world is or ought to be. They

are, more accurately, mediations of, and interventions into, the hegemonic and inter-

woven discourses of nationalist modernization, environmentalism, and ethnicity.

Crucially, FOIN's autoethnographic discourse is produced largely through the idiom

of international development, and incorporates elements of dominant narratives of

development and citizenship in order to renegotiate the place of indigenous peopleswithin these narratives. In contrast to Ferguson's (1990) assertion that development

functions as an àntipolitics machine', the discourses, practices, and institutions of

development are in fact highly politicized and contested by indigenous organizations

such as FOIN. For this reason, development is more usefully conceptualized as a

``crucible of cultural politics'', in which symbolic and material struggles are articulated

and negotiated (Moore, 2000). The diverse, often contradictory processes through

which this contestation occurs are most fruitfully examined through the fine-grained

analysis of specific practices, discourses, and forms of organization that I have pre-

sented here. I believe that such a conceptualization, and the analyses that it allows,may lead to a better understanding of organizations like FOIN and of the liberatory

potential they possess for mediating processes of development.

Acknowledgements. The research on which this paper is based was supported by grants fromFulbright-IIE and the Inter-American Foundation, and the Department of Geography, SyracuseUniversity. I would like to thank the people of FOIN for their assistance and patient cooperation.I am deeply indebted to Humberto Grefa, Marcelo Grefa, and their families for their kindness.Also, Sarah Radcliffe, Jim Glassman, Laurel Smith, and four anonymous reviewers generouslyoffered comments on earlier drafts of this paper that led to its substantial improvement. Anyfactual errors or misinterpretations remain, of course, my own responsibility.

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