Abstract

In the last third of the 20th century, the social dynamic in the Ecuadorian Andes was subject to a series of significant changes : the emergence of a powerful Indian movement, on the one hand, and the reconfiguration of the role of the State, as a corollary of the implementation of structural adjustment policies, better known as “Washington Consensus”, on the other. In spite of the strengths of an Indian movement that found its roots in the agrarian reform of the 1960s and 1970s, it became clear that the new neoliberal matrix led to the dissociation of rural development problem from the yet to be solved question of the concentration of land and wealth. By placing the emphasis on the politics of identity and on the organizational aspects of the Indian and peasant issue, the champions of ethno-development have downgraded any reference to the socioeconomic and political claims of the peasant populations.