Del crepúsculo del gamonalismo a la etnitización de la cuestión agraria en chimborazo (Ecuador)

Abstract

In the 1960s, the crisis of the hacienda regime in the Andes of Ecuador signaled the beginning of a vast social transformation. In this process, ethnic identity became a powerful tool used to obtain essential resources and rights for indigenous peasants under the power of rural landlords. Centered on a case study from the province of Chimborazo, in the central mountains of Ecuador, this article reviews the specifics of this long-standing form of domination and explores the form and the impact of indigenous peasant uprisings until the consolidation of agrarian reform from the 1960s to the 1980s. The article discusses the links between the reform, the strengthening of indigenous organizations, and the re-ethnicization of their demands as a structural component of their relation to the state and agencies of development at the beginnings of the twenty-first century. The intention is to contribute to a discussion of aspects of the ethnicization of identities that address other comparable phenomena in the Andean region.