Reterritorialised Space and Ethnic Political Participation: Indigenous Municipalities in Ecuador

Abstract

Municipalities with an indigenous mayor or council majority represent the reterritorialising of political units and the remaking of political subjects in Ecuadorian formal politics. These indigenous municipalities represent the successful construction of an indigenous political party, involving active citizen participation. Framed by neo-liberal decentralisation legislation in the 1990s reconfiguring Ecuador's political spaces, the reterritorialisation of politics is bound up with transnational connections that shape the national law on municipalities and the practices of local government. Indigenous municipalities are thereby contextualised in a complex politics of scale, as well as the emergence of new subjects of politics. Our focus is on the processes giving rise to indigenous-led municipalities and the implications of indigenous control of local government. Despite important political gains, we argue that the inclusionary impulse of decentralisation legislation and social movement politics is limited by persistent racial and gendered political cultures.