The strategic use of radical indigenous narratives by the Ecuadorian state

ABSTRACT

This paper is a study of the strategic use of language by the Ecuadorian state between 2008 and 2014. The paper analyses the relationship among state-sponsored language games, state images, and contemporary forms of domination in Ecuador. More specifically, the paper studies certain strategies of state domination rooted in the employment of the ‘radical’ political narratives of indigenous peoples in state-planning documents. However, unlike similar studies about how indigenous peoples’ narratives have been co-opted by Ecuador’s government, I develop my arguments in state-theoretical terms. Specifically, I argue that the use of indigenous narratives by the state represents a form of state domination rooted in a seemingly contradictory discursive strategy – one that blurs and simultaneously reaffirms the dividing lines between state and society. I posit that the strategic use of language by the state through what I call, following Mary Louise Pratt, reverse auto-ethnographies, reveals an important dimension of state power – one rooted in the strategic positioning of the state through language games.

KEYWORDS:

• State theory
• indigenous peoples
• Ecuadorian politics
• language games
• reverse auto-ethnography

Notes

1. Walsh, “Development as Buen Vivir.”

2. Lalander and Ospina, “Movimiento indígena y revolución ciudadana.”

3. See for example Walsh, Interculturalidad, Estado y Sociedad; Radcliffe, “Development for a postneoliberal era”; Lalander and Ospina, “Movimiento indígena y revolución ciudadana”; see also, Silva and Rossi, Reshaping the Political Arena in Latin America; and Mignolo and Walsh, Decoloniality.

4. Walsh, Interculturalidad, Estado y Sociedad; and Mignolo and Walsh, Decoloniality.

5. e.g. Becker, “The Stormy Relations”; Lang, Erradicar La pobreza; and Walsh “Development as Buen Vivir.”

6. See Silva and Rossi, Reshaping the Political Arena in Latin America.

7. See Becker, “The Stormy Relations.”

8. See also Lemke, “An Indigestible Meal”

9. It should be noted that the title of the plan includes the dates “2013–2017”, but the plan was drafted between 2011 and 2013 – the historical period with which this paper is concerned.

10. Jessop, State Power, 9.

11. Ibid.

12. Lemke, “An Indigestible Meal.”

13. Schudson, “Culture and the Integration.”

14. Ibid., 64.

15. Dean, Governmentality, 38.

16. Ibid.

17. Jessop, “The State: Past, present and future.”

18. Migdal, State in Society, 16.

19. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population; The Birth of Biopolitics; The Government of Self and Others; Scott, Seeing like a State; and Jessop, State Power.

20. Lemke, “An Indigestible Meal”, 2 (emphasis mine).

21. Bourdieu, The State.

22. SENPLADES, “Que hacemos y quienes somos.”

23. SENPLADES, “Proceso de desconcentración,” 10.

24. C.f. Lalander and Ospina, “Movimiento indígena y revolución ciudadana.”

25. See for instance Bhabha, Nation and Narration; and Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe.

26. See for instance De la Cadena, “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes”; Quijano, “El laberinto de América Latina”; Macas, “Diferentes vertientes”, “El Sumak Kawsay,”; and Stavenhagen, “Challenging the Nation.”

27. Before CONAIE indigenous peoples in Ecuador had organised largely on the basis of class. Thus, important organisations like the Ecuadorian Federation of Indians (FEI) was largely a peasant organisation.

28. What I mean by “foundationalist” is Correa’s proposal to restructure the very foundations of the Ecuadorian nation- state. This project was spearheaded by the enactment of a new Constitution.

29. Rojas, “International Political Economy,” 574.

30. Andrade, Democracia y cambio político, “Los intelectuales en su laberinto”.

31. See for example León, “El buen vivir”; “Reactivación económica”; Larrea, “La plurinacionalidad”; and Gudynas, Derechos de La Naturaleza, Extractivismos.

32. Espinoza, “Escuela Politécnica Nacional,” 1.

33. Escobar, Encountering Development; Also see Rojas, “Development.”

34. Rojas, “Securing the State.”

35. C.f. Echeverría, Modernidad y blanquitud.

36. Quijano, “El laberinto de América Latina.”

37. Escobar, “Latin America at the Crossroads.”

38. Schiwy, “Intelectuales subalternos”; De la Cadena,”Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes”; Alvarez, “La ética del buen vivir”; Alvarez, “La etica del buen vivir, ética del morir bien”; and Mignolo and Walsh, Decoloniality.

39. See Jameson, “The Indigenous Movements in Ecuador”.

40. CONAIE, Sobre Nosotros.

41. Walsh, Interculturalidad, Estado y Sociedad.

42. Ibid.

43. Larrea, “Análisis parroquial y social.”

44. At a basic level “extractivism” can be defined as a term, generally employed by radical social and indigenous organisations to refer to the state’s financing of its developmental model through the intensive extraction/exploitation of natural resources, particularly in culturally and environmentally sensitive areas.

45. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 7.

46. Ibid., 88.

47. See, in particular, Lalander and Ospina, “Movimiento indígena y revolución ciudadana.”

48. See in particular, Lalander and Ospina, “Movimiento indígena y revolución ciudadana”; Walsh, “Development as Buen Vivir”; and Becker, “The Stormy Relations.”

49. SENPLADES, PNBV 2013–2017, 14.

50. Ibid., 32–3.

51. Lalander and Ospina, “Movimiento indígena y revolución ciudadana”.

52. Simbaña, Más allá del desarrollo, 219.

53. Secretaría nacional de comunicación, “La explotación responsible.”

54. Acosta, “Maldiciones que amenazan la democracia.”

55. Ibid., 50.

56. See Dean, Governmentality; Scott, Seeing like a State; and Guerrero, Sociedad Ventrílocua.

57. De Sousa Santos, “The World Social Forum”, De Sousa Santos is favourably cited in the Plan; see, for instance, 31.

58. SENPLADES, PNBV 2009–2013, 31.

59. De la Cadena, “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes.”

60. SENPLADES, PNBV 2009–2013, 23.

61. See note 52 above.

62. Dean, Governmentality, “Liberal government and authoritarianism.”

63. Ibid.

64. Andrade and Nicholls, “La relación entre capacidad y autoridad en el Estado.”

65. SENPLADES, PNBV 2013–2017, 306–310.

66. SENPLADES, PNBV 2013–2017, 69.

67. See León, “El buen vivir: objetivo y camino camino para otro modelo”, and “Reactivación económica para el Buen Vivir: Un acercamiento.”

68. Walsh, “Development as Buen Vivir,” 20.

69. Lalander and Opsina, “Movimiento indígena y revolución ciudadana.”

70. See note 40 above.

71. Lalander and Ospina, “Movimiento indígena y revolución ciudadana,” 31 (emphasis mine).

72. Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine.

Additional information

Funding

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Notes on contributors

Esteban Nicholls

Dr Esteban Nicholls completed his doctoral studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada (2014), where he received the Senate Medal for his doctoral work. He currently works as Chair of the Latin American Studies Doctoral Programme and as Aggregate (Associate) Professor of Social and Global Studies at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Quito, Ecuador. Dr Nicholls’s recent publications include ‘The Universities Project: A Radiography of a Failed State Scheme’. (2018). In Enrique Ayala Mora and Carlos Larrea (Eds.), Ecuador Today. Quito: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar Press and Amazon Distribution – Open Access, as well as ‘La relación entre capacidad y autoridad en el Estado: La construcción de un Estado “Excepcionalista” en Ecuador’ (2017). European Review of Latin American Studies, 103 (Co-authored with Dr. Pablo Andrade). His current research interests include: state theory from an Andean perspective, university reform and state planning in Latin America; state management of South-South migration; processes of state strengthening in recent Latin American history.