Caste in Cuenca: Colonial Identity in the Seventeenth Century Andes

To explore the concept of identity in colonial Ecuador is to examine a multiplicity of ideas and ideologies. As a historical archaeologist trained in North America I bring with me my training in Americanist anthropology and archaeology. As Eric Wolf points out, the anthropologist works within a discipline that was forged in colonialism, and yet at the same time anthropology has been an important critical voice in its examination of the colonial project. Working on the colonial period in the Andes means that I face an extensive existing body of literature produced by historians of Spanish colonialism.Working in Ecuador also means that I am confronted, and frequently confused, by issues of identity in a nation not my own; a country with dynamic interpretations of its rich prehispanic and colonial past, and with pressing current issues of identity politics in the context of globalization in Latin America.