Como la paja del páramo: Everyday Traditions on the Hacienda Guachalá, Ecuador

Summary

The post-independence period (post-1830) of Ecuador and Latin America presented profound socio-political transformations, catalyzing intense debate over the meaning of citizenship and equality for marginalized indigenous populations. Many of these changes manifested on agricultural estates known as haciendas, which often became spaces of direct political actions such as uprisings led by female indigenous activists Dolores Cacuango and Tránsito Amanguaña in the Cayambe area of Ecuador. These leaders fought for basic human rights and dignity for the dispossessed, working from a notion of indigeneity as a community-grounded and tradition-based project that disorders taken-for-granted constructs such as the "nation." This paper examines archaeological and archival data from the Hacienda Guachalá, Cayambe, to explore how "tradition" and the past were part of the materiality of everyday life of both the indigenous and landholding groups after independence.  The material evidence points to the politics of the past in everyday life on the hacienda.   

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Work, Workers, and Workplaces in the Anthropocene: Insights on the Modern World from Industrial, Historical, and Contemporary Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 838