Abstract
In recent years, states have ceded governance over large territories to indigenous organizations. This article examines the history of an early case of territorial governance (dating from the 1970s) to probe the social, political, and environmental processes that occur when an indigenous social movement becomes a governing body. It argues that indigenous organizations can quickly learn to “see like states” (Scott 1998) without adopting the particular visions promoted by the state that facilitated their new role. In the case explored here, indigenous leaders created landscape improvement schemes that went beyond those promoted by the state and others in terms of changing the legibility of land use and tenure categories. Furthermore, their schemes had significant impacts on forest cover as evidenced by remotely sensed images. These processes challenge theories that position the state as the primary arbitrator of human-environmental relations as well as theories that dichotomize between states and indigenous organizations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For more on the march see Whitten et al. 1997.
During the period covered in the analysis, the population of the land management organization in question likely doubled in size, from about 200 heads of household to about 400 (households averaged about 10 people). This was due to marriages with people who did not previously live in the cooperative as well as additions of new members from outside the organization (leaders were eager to bring in additional indigenous people who were committed to the collective ideal, and outsiders were attracted to the organization’s relatively large land holdings). The birthrate also likely outpaced the death rate.
I analyzed the Cooperative’s archives, especially the Actas de la Cooperativa Agropecuaria “San Pedro de Rucu Llacta,” which are handwritten meeting notes totaling over 2000 pages for the period 1970–2001. Aerial photographs were obtained from the Ecuadorian Military Geographical Institute. To create Figures 2, 7 and 8, I geo-referenced the photographs using topographical maps and Erdas Imagine 8.5, and digitized polygons around different land uses using ArcInfo and ArcMap. The first satellite image, from 12 August 1977 is a Landsat Multi-Spectral Satellite (MSS) image, bands 1–4 (100 m × 100 m pixels). The second satellite image, from 14 July 1992, is a Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) image and includes bands 1–5 and 7 (30 m × 30 m pixels) I analyzed the satellite images using semi-supervised classification in Erdas Imagine 8.5.
The spelling changed from Rucu Lllacta to “Rucullacta,” then more recently to “Rukullakta” due to linguistic standardization campaigns within the Ecuadorian indigenous movement (according to the same revised spelling rules, “Quichua” is now “Kichwa”).
While forest cover does not preclude gardening, as some trees are planted for their fruits and some crops can be planted under trees, the local staple food, manioc, is not grown under forest cover and is very commonly planted in gardens adjacent to houses.
CEDOC has maintained the same acronym despite various changes in name. Between 1965 and 1972, it was the Ecuadorian Confederation of Christian Labor Union Organizations (Confederación Ecuatoriana de Organizaciones Sindicales Cristianas).
For more on the formation of the Shuar Federation, see Salazar 1981.
In 1973, FEPOCAN changed its name to the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Napo (FOIN) in acknowledgment of the all-indigenous membership. The organization later changed its acronym to FENAKIN, for the Federation of the Kichwa Nationality of Napo.
References
Agrawal, A. (2005a). Environmentality: Community, Intimate Government, and the Making of Environmental Subjects in Kumaon, India. Current Anthropology 46(2): 161–190.
Agrawal, A. (2005b). Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects. Duke University Press, Durham.
Basso, K. H. (1996). Wisdom Sits in Places: Language and Landscape among the Western Apache. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Bebbington, A., Ramon, G., Carrasco, H., Torres, V. H., Peralvo, L., and Trujillo, J. (1992). Actores de una Decada Ganada: Tribus, Comunidades y Campesinos en la Modernidad. COMUNIDEC and Abya Yala, Quito, Ecuador.
Becker, M. (2008). Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements. Duke University Press, Durham.
Bray, D. B. (1995). Peasant Organization and ‘The Permanent Reconstruction of Nature:’ Grassroots Sustainable Development in Rural Mexico. Journal of Environment and Development 4(2): 185–202.
Cooperative Agropecuaria San Pedro de Rukullakta, Ltda. (1992). Actas. (1970–1992). Unpublished archival material, Rukullakta, Archidona Canton, Napo Province, Ecuador.
Cooperative Agropecuaria San Pedro de Rukullakta, Ltda. (1972–1976). Cuaderno de Trabajos. Unpublished archival material, Rukullakta, Archidona Canton, Napo Province, Ecuador.
FOIN (1989) La Lucha de los Napo Runas. Unpublished MS, FENAKIN Office, Tena, Ecuador.
Gow, P. (1995). Land, People, and Paper in Western Amazonia. In Hirsch, E., and O’Hanlon, M. (eds.), The Anthrhopology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 43–62.
Hiraoka, M., and Yamamoto, S. (1980). Agricultural Development in the Upper Amazon of Ecuador. Geographical Review 70(4): 423–445.
Li, T. (2005). Beyond ‘the State’ and Failed Schemes. American Anthropologist 107(3): 383–394.
Little, P. E. (2001). Amazonia: Territorial Struggles on Perennial Frontiers. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Macdonald, T. Jr. (1979). Processes of Change in Amazonian Ecuador: Quijos Quichua Indians become Cattlemen. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois.
Macdonald Jr., T. (1999). Ethnicity and Culture amidst New “Neighbors”: The Runa of Ecuador’s Amazon Region. Allyn and Bacon, Boston.
Muratorio, B. (1991). The Life and Times of Grandfather Alonso: Culture and History in the Upper Amazon. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick.
Nadasdy, P. (2003). Hunters and Bureaucrats: Power, Knowledge, and Aboriginal-State Relations in the Southwest Yukon. UBC Press, Vancouver.
Oberem, U. (1980). Los Quijos. Historia de la Transculturación de un Grupo Indígena en el Oriente Ecuatoriano. Instituto Otavaleño de Antropología, Otavalo, Ecuador.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Pallares, A. (2002). From Peasant Struggles to Indian Resistance: The Ecuadorian Andes in the Late Twentieth Century. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Perez-Verdin, G., Kim, Yeon-Su, Hospodarsky, D., and Tecle, A. (2009). Factors Driving Deforestation in Common-Pool Resources in Northern Mexico. Journal of Environmental Management 90(1): 331–340.
Perfecto, I., Rice, R. A., Greenberg, R., and Van der Voort, M. E. (1996). Shade Coffee: A Disappearing Refuge for Biodiversity. Bioscience 46(8): 598–608.
Perreault, T. A. (2000). Shifting Ground: Agrarian Change, Political Mobilization, and Identity Construction among Quichua of the Alto Napo, Ecuadorian Amazon. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Geography, University of Colorado.
Pichón, F. (1997). Colonists Land-Allocation Decisions, Land Use, and Deforestation in the Ecuadorian Amazon Frontier. Economic Development and Cultural Change 45(3): 707–744.
Rose, N. (1999). Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Salazar, E. (1981). The Federación Shuar and the Colonization Frontier. In Whitten Jr., N. E. (ed.), Cultural Transformations and Ethnicity in Modern Ecuador. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Sheahan, J. (1987). Patterns of Development in Latin America: Poverty, Repression, and Economic Strategy. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Shoreman, E. E., and Haenn, N. (2009). Regulation, Conservation, and Collaboration: Ecological Anthropology in the Mississippi Delta. Human Ecology 37: 95–107.
Sivaramakrishnan, K. (1999). Transition zones: Changing Landscapes and Local Authority in South-west Bengal, 1990s–1920s. Indian Economic and Social History Review 36(1): 1–34.
Smith, R. C., Tapuy, C. C., and Wray N. (1996). Amazonía: Economía Indígena y Mercado (Los Desafíos del Desarrollo Autónomo). COICA and Oxfam America, Quito.
Taylor, A. C. (1994). El Oriente Ecuatoriano en el Siglo XIX: ‘El Otro Litoral’. In Maiguashca, J. (ed.), Historia y Región en el Ecuador: 1830–1930. Corporación Editora Nacional/FLACSO-Sede Ecuador/CERLAC, Quito, Ecuador, pp. 17–67.
Terborgh, J., and Soulé, M. E. (1999). Why We Need Mega-Reserves–and How to Design Them. In Soulé, M. E., and Terborgh, J. (eds.), Continental Conservation: Scientific Foundations of Regional Reserve Networks. Island Press, Washington, pp. 199–209.
Uquillas, J. (1984). Colonization and Spontaneous Settlement in the Ecuadoran Amazon. In Schmink, M., and Wood, C. H. (eds.), Frontier Expansion in Amazonia. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, pp. 261–284.
Wade, R. (1988). Village Republics: Economic Conditions for Collective Action in South India. Cambridge University Press, New York.
Warren, K. B. (1998). Indigenous Movements and Their Critics: Pan-Maya Activism in Guatamala. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Whitten, N. (1976). Sacha Runa: Ethnicity and Adaptation of Ecuadorian Jungle Quichua. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Whitten Jr., N. E., Whitten, D. S., and Chango, A. (1997). Return of the Yumbo: The Indigenous Caminata from Amazonia to Andean Quito. American Ethnologist 24(2): 355–391.
Zamosc, L. (1994). Agrarian Protest and the Indian Movement in the Ecuadorian Highlands. Latin American Research Review 29(3): 37–68.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Michael Hathway, Laura Ogden, Roderick Neumann, and two anonymous reviewers for particularly insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article. My deepest appreciation goes to the people of Rukullakta for their generous mentorship and friendship. Major funding for research and writing was provided by the University of Michigan’s Rackham Graduate School, an S.V. Ciriacy-Wantrup postdoctoral fellowship, and Florida International University. Any factual errors or misinterpretations, however, are my own.”
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Erazo, J.S. Landscape Ideologies, Indigenous Governance, and Land Use Change in the Ecuadorian Amazon, 1960–1992. Hum Ecol 39, 421–439 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-011-9408-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-011-9408-9