Imagining Ecuadorians: Historicizing National Identity in Twentieth-Century Otavalo, Ecuador

Resumen

In 1955, a monument to Inca warrior Rumiñahui was erected in Otavalo’s central plaza. In this article, I study the ways in which competing imaginings of the Ecuadorian nation have shaped the material and symbolic trajectory of the monument. The monument was the outcome of a struggle for hegemony between nonindigenous elites. The current appropriation of the monument by the local indigenous population, however, is at odds with the ideological purpose for which it was built. The initiative to build the monument emerged from the public sphere—which at that time excluded indigenous peoples—in a context of national debates about the Indian problem. The widespread notion that the indigenous people of Otavalo were exceptional propelled the local nonindigenous elite to debate the Indian problem and shape, in the process, a public sphere. Elucidating the workings of the public sphere in the racialization of indigenous peoples, I aim to contribute to the academic literature about the relationship between Indian and nation in Ecuador. This literature has focused on the role that either the state or the private sphere has played in this racialization and has not paid enough explicit attention to the public sphere.