Pachakutik! The Ecuadorian indigenous identity: decolonizing social and political Andean society

Throughout nearly 500 years, the Andean highlands were dominated by three different Empires. Tahuantinsuyo, home of the Incan dynasty, was among the most organized and was able to expand its empire from as far south as the end of the Argentinean Andes to Southern Colombia. It was built upon different networks that helped sustain the Empire. Incan scholars that were able to document their history, such as Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, offspring of noble Incan and Conquistador origin, were able to provide his depiction of the ‘peaceful’ transfers of power between the Incan Empire and former nations. The subjugation of the Ecuadorian highland indigenous peoples initially began with the first Spanish colonization that inflicted a series of social and political shifts within society. The Viceroyalty of Peru thoroughly looked at a series of different adaptations to indigenous peoples, primarily from the Ecuadorian highlands, through various periods of epidemics that would decimate native populations, often eliminating entire villages. As the 19th century began.Indigenous people were regarded as the “backward, miserable and disposable” race throughout much of the 19th century; with Ecuadorian conservative and liberal governments unraveling a series of economic and international disputes, the indigenous class was left to fend their lives in the hacienda system that remained from the Spanish colonization and utilized by the agricultural and Catholic elites to dominate their horrible and sadistic regulations amongst the Indian farmers. The new Ecuadorian republic required all citizens to have ‘basic’ prerequisites in order to be considered for citizenship, as Indians were still deemed to be of the ‘other’ within the societal system, let alone ever to influence a white-dominated Ecuadorian political system. Why study the Ecuadorian highlands? Because it is filled with people with an untold story, it is a reason to continue the decolonization efforts to bring the history that has not been told. Today, indigenous peoples of the Ecuadorian highlands continue to be oppressed but also continue to fight for their freedom, the very freedom their great-grandmothers had hoped for in their country.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.