Ethnopolitics in Ecuador: Inter-American Constitutionalism and Good Living

Abstract

The 1990’s saw the rise and consolidation of Ecuador’s indigenous movement. As a result of converging economic, social and political crises during this period, the traditional centres of power were forced to recede, clearing the way for indigenous peoples to demand cultural, social, political and economic transformation in Ecuadorian society.This process coincided with a transformative era that some have called the ‘progressive constitutionalism of the global south’. A transformation led by the convergence of domestic, regional and international human rights law. The concurrent timing of these events led to the consolidation of a particular form of ethnopolitics, which combined historical demands for social and political equality with newer concepts such as plurinationalism, multiculturalism and protecting the integrity of the environment. Conceptual advancements that were later enshrined in Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution in the form of Good Living and subsequently reinstated in the Sarayaku v Ecuador judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.