Water, Trees and Tourists: Political Totems and the Contest for Community Economic Sovereignty in Ecuador

• In Event: Making “the Public” in Popular Economies: Latin America’s Changing Shared Economic Spheres

Abstract

This paper examines the administrative and narrative tactics that Ecuadorian communities use to establish authority in a disjointed public, economic sphere. Two questions orient the research: First, do different objects of value—water, trees, and tourists—give rise to different public spheres? Second, does community defense of resources, against the state, outside capital, or successful local business people, contribute to an inclusive public sphere? For rural communities, each of these iconic objects entails different kinds of organizations, for example junta de agua or a Centro de Turismo Comunitario. For each, state ministries offer variations of citizenship rights and duties and divides public vs. private along different lines. And at a national level, the idea of the “public” itself is newly restricted and evolving. This paper draws on multi-year ethnographic project that has focused on community tourism and the struggles with state agencies for control. The material draws from both highland (Quilotoa and Peguche) and Coastal case studies (Pedrenales). In each case, conflicts reveal the immanent presence of the “public” in ostensibly private disputes. At the same time, these cases show state governance as both agile and invasive, perpetually reducing the ground for customary and collective claims for authority.

Authors

• Rudi J Colloredo-Mansfeld, University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill

• Angelica Ordonez