The Public Histories that Emerged from Recording Indigenous Communism in Ecuador

How do activists use historical memory? Examining the narratives expressed in recorded oral histories, I argue that Indigenous labor leaders from the haciendas of Cayambe, Ecuador constructed an empowering narrative politics that guided their allies as well as future activists in preserving and revitalizing the history of their local activism. In light of critiques from across the political spectrum about the waning salience of Marxist projects, I aim to show how, in mid-20th century Ecuador, Indigenous activists’ understandings of the significance of their communism were radically unorthodox, and in fact–because of the ways in which they recorded and archived their experiences of resistance– their perspectives continue to offer lessons about spaces for indigenous empowerment in the present. Understanding historical documentation as part of wider political projects allows for an analysis of historical self-representation as political action.

Marlen Rosas is assistant professor of History at Haverford College in Haverford, PA. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania. Her book project, Recording Indigenous Resistance: Literacy, Memory, and Narrative Power in Twentieth-Century Ecuador, employs critical archive scholarship, oral history, and memory studies approaches to the examination of Indigenous mobilization in twentieth-century Ecuador, arguably the most organized Indigenous movement in the history of the Americas. She is the co-founder and convener of the Thinking Andean Studies Interdisciplinary Conference.

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