Communities which identify themselves as traditionally indigenous today find themselves fighting to preserve their distinctiveness from modern conglomerate companies attempting to consume their natural resources and culture. This is a world-wide phenomenon as a result of globalization, and these “primitive groups”’ last resort is to attempt communicating agency and identity through revolution in order to preserve their ancient culture and practices. In the upper Amazon region of Ecuador outside of Tena, there are 17 small communities that exemplify indigenous revolution against the oil company Perenco through indignation, violence, and external communication. This thesis attempts to interpret activism as communication, discussing the specific case study and comparing other contemporary and historical records of revolutionary movements, to better understand the fact that communicating individuality is a persistent factor with indigenous societies. It will begin by examining historical factors and records of how these particular Andean peoples of Incan ancestry found themselves contemporarily titled “indigenous”, followed by constructing globalization theory within the context of the impact it has had on Latin America generally, attempt to understand the present-day connection between the corporate state and native rural society and digress the established communication as to where messages and ideas become differentiated between both parties, and finally dissect the case study in Ecuador to determine the communicative aspects of identity while comprehending the direction this unparallel relationship is moving towards as innovation continues to pervade even the most rustic corners of the globe. The persistent argument is between natural resources: corporate businesses need them for product (lumber, oil, steel, and so on) and the indigenous communities’ way of living is encompassed in the land through gardening and other natural practices. When agreements come about, global companies are
careless in their means of extracting the natural resources, essentially killing the surrounding environment through oil spills and mudslides, leading to the issue that they are destroying the natural culture of the indigenous tribes because their identity is so closely connected to the earth.
Andean communities of ancient ancestry without European background were not considered “native” or “indigenous” until the conquistadores arrived in America de Latina. According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, the Latin-based adjective word “indigenous” is defined as “produced, growing, living, or occurring naturally in a particular region or environment.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 1) Prior to 1492, knowledge of the native empires is very sparse as developed records were not always kept and if records existed, they were decimated in the process of conquest (Horna 3). There are many historical records by the Europeans, however, which have sparked numerous scholarly essays and articles as to how life was prior to Columbus. One of the more stereotypical findings in academia when it comes to pre-Conquest in the “New World” is that the indigenous populations were isolated. However when Columbus arrived and began conquering the entirety of Latin America, his confidants found Chinese architecture near the Panama Canal and noticed native women wearing pendants around their neck of Chinese caricatures. This makes evident that the indigenous communities had previous foreign encounters and partnerships (Horna 20). Aside from foreign policy, agriculture was a significant development in Latin America dating back to 1500 B.C., and the ties these people had to the land created their deity, Pachamama (Mother Earth) which still exists today (Horna 13). Having their very permanent agricultural lifestyle with little innovation and technology, along with the very few foreign encounters with far eastern cultures, when the Europeans arrived it was inevitable that the native populations would be significantly impacted.
Upon the arrival of the Europeans, Latin America, particularly in the areas where fully-sedentary societies existed (i.e. Mexico and the Aztecs, the Andean region with the Inca, and Guatemala and the Maya), was infected by foreign disease, greed, and subjugation of labor. Those native peoples of Latin America who were not dead from disease or war found themselves as human machines of labor to mine silver and gold or of reproduction. By forcing enslavement, it created segregation and a hierarchy of power, making the indigenous groups “the other” in their native lands. The Europeans conquistadores came under the creed “God, Gold and Glory”, and the use of religion as a tactic of violence against the indigenous populations further created the dichotomy between the two groups. Pablo Richard quotes in his article words of the indigenous during the time of conquest published in 1980 in reference to the Europeans and their God.1 “It was due only to the crazy times, to the crazy priests, that sadness came into us, that Christianity came into us. Because the so-called Christians came here, they said, with the true God. But that was the beginning of our misery, the beginning of tribute, the beginning of charity, the cause that made the hidden discord appear, the beginning of fights with firearms, the beginning of abuse, the beginning of all kinds of plundering, the beginning of slavery due to debts, the beginning of debts stuck to our backs, the beginning of constant quarrels, the beginning of suffering. It was the beginning of the work carried out by the Spaniards and the priests, the beginning of using (manipulating) the chieftains, the school teachers and the lawyers.... The poor things did not protest for the way in which their wise men were enslaved,
1 Cf. the books of M. L. Portilla, "Visión de los vencidos: Relaciones indígenas de la conquista," (Mexico 1980) and "El reverso de la conquista: Relaciones aztecas, mayas e incas," (Mexico 1980).
2 Maya testimony from the Book of Prophecy of the Lineages. (Chilam Balam de Chumayel), quoted by M.L. Portilla, op. cit., p. 86.
Indian. But the day will come in which the tears of their eyes will reach God and God's justice will descend like a blow on the world.”2 (Pablo Richard 2) The argument of the Europeans conducting “God’s work” was a communicative attempt to manipulate and justify the severely harsh treatment of the enslaved natives, as well as convince the indigenous peoples that it was their purpose to work and produce in the name of God as their religions held similar figures of prominence. Priests played a significant role in relaying God’s messages to the indigenous peoples and often maintained the most power psychologically. Not only could they use theology as a way to wield surrender to labor, there are records of priests and friars using their powerful hold for their own sexual conquests of the indigenous people. (Chuciak, IV 70). Violent sexual stories, including one of Father Cristóbal de Valencia and the Mayan boy3, demonstrate the raw dichotomy of power between those who claim to be messengers of God to those who do not have God. (Chuchiak IV 70) As a device of communication, the act of psychological exploitation, in this instance through religion and theology, is critical in maintaining power and control over another human being.
Blunt force with European superior attitudes and technology initiated the separation of the indigenous as well. During this period in history, superiority lied in northern Europe, namely England, in every aspect but particularly with weaponry and military forces. Spain in 1492 defeated the Muslim armies from that region and forced them into northern Africa, and after fighting an exhausting war Spain’s economy was weak and their resources were very slim.
3 “Testimonio y declaración de Clemente Ek en contra de su cura Cristóbal de Valencia” (6 July 1609), AGN, Ramo de Inquisición, legajo 472, expediente 5, fol. 10r.
Portugal was the first country to begin sailing the oceans and conquering foreign lands for resources and wealth, and soon many European nations ignited into a competition of nautical endeavors. With heavily artillery, weapons, ships, and other advanced technology European nations found that they were more powerful against the world whereas relative to one another were insignificant and defeating indigenous peoples was a simple task. Spain discovered the “New World” in the Mesoamerican region, namely contemporary the Caribbean and Mexico, and discovered the multitude of resources, natural and human. More than anything, the European men who set sail reveled in the idea of glory and absolute power. “Individual men felt liberated to acquire knowledge seen as power. These iconoclasts blasted old beliefs to generate new philosophical positions, political revolutions, scientific research, and exploration of the globe. As individuals, in groups and as agents for governments, men set out on expeditions to explore and acquire the world. Europeans had long built ships that could fairly reliably sail the broadest oceans, but until now they had no impulse to do so. Now they sailed to places white men had not visited before, that for millennia had followed their own traditions.” (French 17-18) Towards the end of the 15th century after defeating Muslim armies, Spain’s reputation began to excel exceedingly through the unity of the kingdoms of Aragón and Castile through the marriage of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabelle. Spain’s once segregated provinces torn by foreign invasion and cultural differences now solidified into one nation. “This reconcepualization became a tremendously powerful instrument of sociopolitical change that both facilitated territorial expansion and allowed for the rapid remodeling of conquered societies into constituent populations, which were not reorganized with the monarchy as a necessary arbitrator uniting its diverse territories.” (Ibánez and Sabatini 502) Along with this thought is the fact that Spain’s history of violence and struggle for peace influenced their actions in the new world (Aizpuru 98). The desire for acquisition of power and the ability to do so allowed the Spaniards to enslave the indigenous peoples so easily.
The most permanent mark of European conquest upon the indigenous peoples is the reproduction aspect: European conquistadores had sexual relations with indigenous women creating multitudes of new racial categories. Being the component of European conquest with the more lasting impression, the centuries following the conquest saw the rise of a middle class of those with a European background while the purely indigenous populations remained at the lower end of the economic, social and political hierarchy. The upper-middle class regency of mixed and full Spanish heritage wanted independence for their nations, not necessarily for the freedoms of every culture, but primarily due to the recent French and American independence revolutions. The independence movements came about in early 19th century but were not center-stage within international politics like the two previous movements. “Between 1815 and 1820, the movement for Latin American independence was entangled with an international struggle over the fruits of Spanish imperial collapse. But while both the Western and the Eastern Question involved geopolitical competition over dying empires; the parallel between them is not exact. Unlike the Eastern Question, the Western Question was not perennial, nor did it provoke major armed conflict between the great powers. Moreover, Latin American independence never became the subject of international congresses or collective action. For these reasons, Paul Schroeder has concluded that Latin American independence was not a great concern of the great powers.” (Blaufarb 760) Because of the declining power of two different empires, the Latin American independence movements were able to become a successful endeavor without great influence or interruption externally. The issue with Latin American independence lies with those who are gaining such independence: the wealthy upper-class men of European decent who continue to subjugate the indigenous populations exclusively but not as severely as the imported African slaves. When slaves were brought in from Africa, the indigenous populations were no longer used for labor and were therefore driven to the sides of the political and economic scenes; they were not heard and were not seen as important citizens within Latin America. Therefore when independence was won from Spain, the few men who cared built Latin America up with some difficulty but without any regard to the indigenous groups, continuing to place them in a group as other, and this social stipulation continues to exist today.
The new phenomenon of globalization is tricky because of its implications. “The term ‘globalization’ is widely used to describe a variety of economic, cultural, social, and political changes that have shaped the world over the past 50-odd years, from the much celebrated revolution in information technology to the diminishing of national and geo-political boundaries in an ever-expanding, transnational movement of goods, services, and capital. The increasing homogenization of consumer tastes, the consolidation and expansion of corporate power, sharp increases in wealth and poverty, the ‘McDonaldisation’ of food and culture, and the growing ubiquity of liberal democratic ideas are all, in one way or another, attributed to globalization. It is certainly one of the most contested topics in the social sciences, and – possibly because it is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon – it has been accorded multiple definitions, and a wide range of powers and effects have been ascribed to it.” (Guttal 523) Though it is beneficial for developing countries like Latin America to become involved in the global economic market, no matter how insignificant the impact, it can have detrimental effects on populations who stand in the way of what the global corporations want: natural resource wealth. Globalization functions on having the few powerful and the many powerless and Latin America is part of the many. The growing desperation for economic flow of capital has brought many countries, particularly in Latin America, into the crime, drug and prostitution black markets. Poverty is often directly linked to globalization. “Globalization means greater economic integration manifested through increased openness via numerous transmission mechanisms such as trade and investment liberalization; movements of capital, labor migration across borders and within countries; the nature of technological change and diffusion of knowledge and technology; the worldwide information flows; and institutional environments. These mechanisms affect poverty through two different paths: first, through their contributions to the growth channel and, second, through their impact on income distribution since globalization is also known to create winners and losers directly and affect vertical and horizontal inequalities. The specific links are from openness to growth, from openness to income distribution (inequality), from growth to income distribution and vice versa, from growth to poverty, and from income distribution to poverty, respectively. In turn, the two main channels of globalization—the “growth” and “distribution” channels—further interact dynamically over time to produce a growth–inequality–poverty triangular relationship, describing the arithmetic-statistical relationship among growth, inequality, and poverty investigated and popularized by Bourguignon (2003).” (Nissanke and Thorbecke 798) To digress, globalization functions on innovation distribution and wealth of capital and in that systematic operation of gaining both objectives “losers” will be produced, and those losers are those who gain neither and remain in poverty or become impoverished.
Focusing within the Andean region exclusively the negative impact of globalization has had damaging effects. In Colombia alone “200 bombs have blown up in Colombia's cities; an entire democratic leftist political party was eliminated by right-wing paramilitaries; 4 presidential candidates, 200 judges and investigators, half the Supreme Court's justices, 1,200 police officers, 151 journalists, and more than 300,000 ordinary Colombians have been murdered.” (Pardo 65) According to Jo-Marie Burt and Philip Mauceri, “Since the early 1990’s, the Andean region of Latin America has been the most unstable and violent area in the hemisphere. “ (1) They continue, “The intensification of guerrilla, paramilitary and drug violence in Colombia has raised the specter of the regionalization of a conflict that has persisted for decades. The weakness of political parties has strengthened the hand of the military elsewhere in the Andes, most notably in Peru, where democratic institutions were systematically undermined during the Fujimori administration. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez’s caudillo-style government used executive powers to curtail and control the power of other governmental institutions, while in Ecuador the chronic inability to forge and maintain a governing coalition has resulted in weak governments, a presidential impeachment, and Latin America’s first successful coup d’état in over a decade.” (1) These continuous issues and persistent difficulties can be attributed to the ongoing infestation of poverty within these countries, and as globalization continues to spread innovation and withhold technology and capital from these depleting regions, the economic and political tensions will only increase.
Indeed globalization is the spread of modern nationalistic features outside the borders of a developed country. Globalization calls into consideration the nature of work as it entails innovative technology, creating an inherent hierarchy amongst people around the world: those who need not work physically have the ability to use machinery, machinery produces surpluses of products in shorter amounts of time, therefore those who find necessity in working physically are of less value economically and socially within the globalized realm. Earnest Gellner writes, “In the agrarian world, most men worked with their muscle. In industrial society, physical work is virtually unknown, and there is simply no market for human brawn. What passes for manual work generally presupposes the capacity to read instructions and manuals. The garage mechanic, who may lose social standing because his work involves dirtying his hands, is in fact paid not for the use of physical strength, but for understand and handling of quite complex machinery. In brief, what passes for manual work presupposes a level literacy and sophistication which must often be well above that of the professional scholar of the agrarian age.” (28) Essentially the phenomenon of modernism spanning outwards to become globalization creates subordination between one way of life over the other, creating a substantial difference between past and present. It is necessary to understand the globalization through innovation has completely changed indigenous peoples in their ethic of work, their social standings within Latin American society and globally, their economic and political status as a culture, and generally with the degradation of their livelihood. Basically, the indigenous peoples continue to fall rapidly behind economically as modern society continues to flourish, creating dissention from developed powers, to the governing state of developing countries, and finally to the struggling native peoples.
The more fervent question in modern society is how globalization detracts from local culture wherever it may be. Particularly in Latin America, with the United States’ neighboring northward and the fact that it runs the globalization process, is one theory stating that American marketing culture is imposing itself upon Latin American culture via globalization. “One commonly held perspective posits that because the United States dominates the process of globalization, especially in Latin America, the result is the spread of U.S.-style market capitalism, with its attendant cultural consequences. The resulting “global” culture might be better called a U.S.-style “market culture”, that is, a culture which values individualism, competition, and consumerism. It is also one that is marked by the twin processes of marketization and commodification throughout society.” (Oppenheim 56) Globalization as we have constructed it creates economic and political instability in nations not part of the elite; however it appears it affects societal norms as well. One can assume that if mainstream Latin America culture is so affected by globalization in taking on the American-style culture, it is disseminating itself into rural areas of Latin America into the indigenous populations as well. Because globalization is interested in reaching the natural resources, and the indigenous have honed their culture within the land, it is fair to say that globalization is literally taking and destroying the culture of the indigenous populations, particularly in the Andean regions.
Globalization as it impacts Latin America is infecting every aspect of the region. From the capital cities, which desperately need money and capital for infrastructure, public funds and simply to build up to become more competitive in the world market, to the rural depths of indigenous lands where running water and electricity are hardly fathomable concepts, globalization is controlling political and economic markets, as well as detracting from social and cultural tradition and practices. Globalization also controls the relationship between state and communities. In the Andean region, communities of indigenous peoples will often discover that because of the power of global companies and the dire strains of the state, the state will often pass legislation or approve access for global companies onto different sects of land depending on what they desire most (in this instance, oil is the most prevalent sought-after resource) without informing the indigenous peoples of their planned actions. This is directly involved with purposeful lack of communication from both the global and state levels because the indigenous, historically and contemporarily, are helpless in their feats to maintain mere existence.
There are theorists however that would argue against the idea of globalization consuming culture and socio-economic small markets, but rather the nation-state is what fuels globalization onward and its’ existence is critical in keeping the market alive. It is at the national level that indigenous peoples should actively participate in as it has the most influence at the local division. “And yet, while some of the 13 Latin American countries have also made some constitutional changes to formally declare themselves “multicultural” or “plurinational,” none of these countries has introduced enabling legislation to translate those precepts into defensible rights at the local level (Van Cott, 2000). It would seem that the governments of these countries ratified ILO Convention 169 primarily for image reasons, with little or no intention of implementing it (Díaz-Polanco and Sánchez, 2003). Therefore, the new challenge for indigenous peoples really begins at this point; it will be the movement’s organizational achievements, along with a consolidated indigenous identity, that could make the difference in making institutional and policy reality approximate the formal-legal successes, and hence the importance of a theory of political-class formation that takes adequate account of national-level factors.” (Otero 331)
It is difficult to say how globalization will continue to affect Latin America’s Andean cultures down the road. Natural resources, particularly oil, are depleting quickly due to copious need and further deforestation and aquatic destruction are predictable. The indigenous revolutions in Latin America politically, which will be examined through Ecuador, are due to the unhappiness of the people and the need to be heard. Their homes are livelihoods are being destroyed due to globalization.
Ecuador is known for its’ plethora of natural resources because of the numerous variations in land mass from the Andes mountains to the Amazon rainforest, but particularly the oil supply. The corporate world has directly impacted indigenous communities, whether through imposing upon the governing state to deter from local economy towards labor and capital for global companies, or by simply purchasing natural resources and harvesting them personally through eco-destruction within the property of different indigenous groups, without giving consent to the state to sell their land. Since the 1970’s, crude oil companies such as Texaco-Gulf and Exxon have been interested in the oil within the Ecuadorian Amazon basin. Together with Ecuador’s national oil company, two billion barrels of crude oil have been extracted altogether. (Sebastián and Hurtig, p.2) How does this impact the indigenous populations in this region? “The widespread oil contamination in the northern Oriente, as this rainforest region east of the Andes is known, is the subject of a twelve-year long lawsuit against Texaco (now merged into Chevron). Over the course of about twenty years, Texaco dumped some 18 billion gallons of oil and toxic waste into Ecuador’s lakes and streams, contaminating groundwater, rivers and fisheries and causing hundreds of Ecuadorians to die of strange cancers, according to the plaintiffs. Their lawyers and scientific experts insist it’s the worst oil-related contamination in the world today—thirty times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill. Texaco, which denies any link between oil exposure and health problems, claims it followed standard industry practices of the time and that Ecuador’s government, to which it sold its interests in the late 1980s, is responsible for any problems today.” (Eviatar 28) The oil with the water made its way into the soil as well in the Amazon basin of Ecuador, creating significant damage to the gardens of the indigenous: their livelihood and culture.
According to the United States’ State Department, 25% of the Ecuadorian population is indigenous. Their natural resources include petroleum, fish, shrimp, timber, gold and copper. In 2008, the GDP incurred activity is credited mostly to oil and natural gas extraction as well as mining, which was responsible for 26.8% of the overall GDP (State department, sections 2-3).
The history of Ecuador politically and economically is similar to the rest of Latin America. Ecuador was first conquered by the Inca. “The Incas, under Túpac Inca, only conquered and sacked Quito in 1492, but still had time to imprint their urban architecture on the city, linking it to Cuzco with one of their main roads, 1,250 miles long. The city is named after the conquered tribe then living there, the Quitu. But Quito and Ecuador in general have not kept much of an Inca past, unlike Peru. Perhaps the Incas did not have the time to build temples as they consolidated their frontiers. Today’s frontier between Ecuador and Colombia is where Huayna Capac placed the boundary stones marking the northern limits of the Inca empire.” (Wilson 95) When the Europeans came across the Incan empire after conquering the Aztecs in Mexico, the sedentary society quickly fell and many of the Incan indigenous peoples fled, hiding higher in the Andes Mountains and moving deeper into the Amazon rainforest. After the establishment of the European rule in Latin America, the indigenous peoples who fled were typically left alone because where they resettled were not places of interest to the Europeans to discover. Small indigenous communities are dispersed throughout Ecuador and as innovative technology and capital began to grow world-wide, so did the need for natural resources to fuel
and maintain the man-made creations. As the state became more involved with the indigenous culture and interested in their territories, the indigenous peoples’ frustration continued to multiply. There are records of historical revolutions by the indigenous prior to the 20th century, but their adaptation to modern culture has made activism on their part more noticeable on a global scale. “But Van Cott and Yashar characterise these formations of new alliances and constructions of supra-ethnic indigeneities not in terms of their demands and intentions, but in terms of their cultural commonalities. ‘In the 1980s and1990s, indigenous organisations throughout Latin America presented to allies and adversaries an objectified indigenous identity based on a relatively consistent set of cultural traits that were chosen for their genuine resonance within the indigenous population’. Indigenous mobilisation thus explained occupies a sort of political twilight zone—it appears on the scene of politics only to press demands that are in themselves cultural: the official recognition of indigenous languages, of traditional authority structures, etc. The state becomes the object of indigenous demands, in other words, not in its function as an instrument of political action—the organ through which the national future is planned and shaped—but in its function as a public stage for cultural recognition and re-vindication.” (Schaefer 399-400)
An example of indigenous cooperation and unification is the CONAIE, Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (Confederation of National Indigenous in Ecuador), where the indigenous populations of Ecuador came together into a single organization in order to be more active within the state government (CONAIE, 1). This has allowed them to better organize protests and rallies, conduct meetings and conferences discussing current political and economic issues, and overall create a strong bond whereas before individual indigenous communities stood alone and had to fend for themselves. “While a social movement cannot be conflated to a single organization, the fact is that the vast majority of social movement activities carried out by indigenous peoples in Ecuador are led and/or coordinated by a single national-level organization, CONAIE, or by one of its member organizations. CONAIE was founded in 1986 when two regional organizations, one representing highland indigenous peoples and the other Amazonian Indians, joined forces. CONAIE’s organizational membership includes federations representing all twelve indigenous nationality groups, which, CONAIE organizers say, represent 70% of the country’s total indigenous population. This population is itself very diverse, with over two million living in the Andean highlands, over 100,000 in the Amazonian lowlands and a small number in Ecuador’s tropical coastal region.” (Collins 42)
One significant protest on Quito organized by CONAIE occurred January 21, 2000 when the indigenous wanted to oust the current president. The new president, Gustavo Noboa, was placed into office after a “short-lived military-civilian coup” and desired that the indigenous engage in conversation with the state government. After the brief coup ended the indigenous protestors returned to their homes to determine whether discussion of future politics with the newly-instated president would be worth their while (Elton). This protest among many others conducted by the CONAIE represents the fact that now indigenous groups are organized their voice, though often required in large numbers, can and will be heard. The act of protest and revolution in the case of the CONAIE is a communicative process. Protesting the government forces media attention and thereby forces the government to react to the indigenous people to some degree (Mendez, Parnell and Wasserstrom 3).
A similar situation was discovered also within Ecuador: a group of 17 communities outside of Tena which was directly studied by students under Dr. Timothy Smith of Appalachian State University’s Anthropology department to examine the impact of the oil company Perenco on these various communities, the actions they underwent to express indignation of the company and state’s actions, and to hypothetically determine the future of these indigenous peoples. In June 2009 we set off to Ecuador for three weeks to better understand the situation happening around Cotacocha. There were four research teams with various themes: history, identity/activism, gender, and oil. The focus of each group was creating various questions around the topic and interview local community members willing to covernse about their experiences with Perenco.
The information gathered from each group was similar but stories were often told very differently from one participant to another. Interviews were typically conducted informally within the participants’ homes. The story of each community is very different in its cultural history and the people within them, but the discussions of the oil companies and their various methods to build the pipeline are fairly similar. In an interview conducted June 19, a woman we interviewed stated, “Venecia was founded in 1950 across the Napo River. Before they came here there were no highways and they built houses out of straw, which is now the bilingual school. Before there were no proper teachers; when one graduated elementary school one was qualified to teach. There were no opportunities for higher education. ‘Linguists’ came and built churches and schools in a row. (Charles inserts the probability that the ‘Linguists’ were actually missionaries). They would teach and preach the word of God.” (qtd. in 19 June Interview) It has been recorded previously that in another instance further into the Ecuadorian Amazon basin, the Huoarani tribe, known for its violence towards intruders on their land, were coaxed into allowing oil rigs into their land through missionaries. The missionaries were hired by the oil companies to ‘teach the word of God’ in order to make the indigenous peoples more complacent to the companies’ wishes (Trinkets & Beads, film). This is an aspect of the communicative process, which appears to be of a similar circumstance within the Venecia community, in that in order for communities to comply outside sources, particularly missionaries, were hired by the corporations to integrate themselves into the communities in a positive way: producing buildings, electricity, building churches, providing educational resources and teachers, and overall giving the communities necessary benefits provided in more developed areas to make the indigenous people more relaxed and comfortable with the idea that they would continue to be compensated for allowing their land to be used for an oil pipeline. In an interview conducted on June 22, these two participants stated that Perenco supported the surrounding communities significantly, installing a water pipeline for a fresh water source and helping to build houses (qtd. in 22 June Interview). Others in the community are aware of the manipulations the oil company imposed on the communities and now skeptical of any foreign guests, even us. During our time in Ecuador within the communities we gave the impression that we were Eco-tourists looking to learn about their cultures and language. We attended an event in Misahualli, another community further from the river, which is focused on Eco-tourists and bringing in revenue for their meager economies. We had to shadow our identities out of respect for the indigenous communities as their history with foreigners has not been as beneficial, according to some, as they were promised. What they fear now, specifically the community presidents are further damages from the oil pipeline, such as oil spills in their gardens and in their water system. Because the forte of this particular group was the history of the individual communities, most of the stories gathered were historical folk tales of spirits, the forests and their ancestors. There was one story that pervaded each interview, and that is the story of how the communities came to being. A Spanish woman, Estar Seville, from Quito came to the region and established a hacienda (or plantation). We do not know of the timeframe when she was there. The local people living on the land at that time were thrown out, and they crossed the Napo River and establish communities along the opposite bank of the river. Some maintained jobs with Seville before she left the area and plantation altogether. The newly formed communities were just a few initially, but after internal family disputes and other personal issues, there are now 17 different communities within this small vicinity.
The above photograph is one taken personally on our first interview endeavor. (Oliver 1) In order to reach the garden where our elderly participant was working that morning, we had to cross the expansive river in canoes guided by long poles. This interview in particular was roughly two hours in length. This group studied the history of the communities and the goal was to simply find out the facts and stories of the history of each community member we interviewed. In our first interview our source claimed that the reason there are numerous communities in such a small area is that the people simply needed space and split off (qtd. in 17 June interview). Our participant spoke frequently about how they plant their garden, the prayers they conduct for bountiful harvests, and it seemed that they spend much of daylight in their garden working. We had the opportunity to help plant yucca and learn the process of doing so (yucca being a staple crop in this region), and the below photo demonstrates our participation as our participant painted marks on our faces, along with her own, as a ritual when praying to the Gods for a beneficial harvest (Photo 2).
The three other groups gathered information other than our own. The group focused on gender interviewed women specifically. When interviewed, one woman commented that when Perenco established their pipeline within their communities the men worked for them and knew the information, whereas the women did not know much at all (qtd. in 18 June Interview). This was not the perception the history group received from their interviews due to the women who participated seemed to know some information about the oil company and the impact it has had on their communities. In the same interview previously mentioned, the woman stated, “In the community women’s roles are within the home, in the garden and to care for the children. The men work outside the home to provide for the things that cannot be produced at home.” (qtd. in 18 June Interview) Each group had and individual Spanish to Quichua translator as many of the community members just spoke their indigenous language. The men who assisted the groups in translating were more often the husbands of the women interviewed, and they did not participate in releasing information even though they likely knew more about the oil company. Like most of our interview participants, the questions asked and the answers given were never quite what the research team was looking for in terms of information. This is due to the fact that most of our participants were women. Many of the women we found were from various communities outside of the one they were living in now because they were married off by their families and did not know the specific histories of the communities they now live in (qtd. in 18 June Interview). One woman we interview was significantly involved with her community at the time, working specifically on micro businesses and illiteracy, which is unusual for the indigenous culture in Ecuador as it holds more traditional views of how active women should be (qtd. in 18 June Interview). Another woman married to the local shaman was the president of one community, Santa Urcu, however she to be retiring soon after we departed from Ecuador (qtd. in 22 June Interview). This is an interesting phenomenon as well: a woman leading a community politically, economically and socially.
The identity and activism group managed to learn that the Perenco gave the community households materials rather than money, an assumption our group made but was never clearly stated (qtd. in 17 June Interview). The participant in this particular interview continued to reveal that prior to the oil company and the pipeline invading their land, the communities and indigenous individuals were not actively involved or organized with one another. After Perenco came in, however, they realized that activism was critical in maintaining their lifestyles. Soon the issue of inappropriate behavior from the oil company representatives and workers came about towards the women in the community, particularly the younger women, and members organized a strike for Perenco to sign an agreement to end this behavior. The strike ended soon after Perenco signed the agreement and the communities clarified that if the agreement were to be violated they would protest to the president of Tena (qtd. in 17 June Interview). In an interview the following day, it was understood that Perenco was also responsible for the construction of the paved road which runs directly through each community for better access roughly ten years ago (qtd. in 18 June Interview). On June 22, the violence of the communities was interpreted as the participant stated exclusively that the community at one point in time took hostages in demand for more money and benefits from the oil company, and even threatened to tie up and taken into hostage oil company workers and representatives if their demands were not fulfilled (qtd. in 22 June Interview).
The fourth and final group emphasized the impact of oil. In their first interview on June 17, their participant expressed that there is the potential that he will move his family away from the region if the water continues to be contaminated. So far, he stated, they will continue to live in their community because the water is not too bad yet, however he feels his children will have to migrate elsewhere (qtd. in 17 June Interview). A concern expressed in an interview the following day was that the communities are in the flood plains and with the water and soil being contaminated in certain areas that their crops will be destroyed during each rainy season (qtd. in 18 June Interview). More information was gathered in an interview on June 19 with another participant who stated, “An agreement was reached for payment in exchange for the pipeline, but when the pipe was actually laid in the ground, an engineer came to each home negotiating with each family. The community members here do not know the law and some eventually agreed to only be compensated one dollar. Doctors, lawyers and other well-educated individuals were paid in full as established in the initial agreement because they knew the law and were able to negotiate accordingly. Others were not so lucky and some only received a few cents per meter of their land which the pipe was within.” This particular participant and her husband were only paid 50 cents per meter for their 125 meters the pipe was in. (qtd. in 19 June Interview). On June 22, the interview provided information about the violent protests the community members have participated with in the past. The participant stated, “When the people go to protest, they are greeted by police and military, who sometimes kill them. The young people now have no fear of death, but the older generation did. One year ago there was a protest in Puerto Napo where two individuals died. The military does not respect women and children. They killed those people point-blank. Four people lost a leg and many others suffered smaller injuries. The military beat whoever thought were deserving. In retaliation, the people threw bombs and dynamite at the military forces. They closed the road and there were two thousand people there to protest, including women and children. The president at the time said to the people ‘you are animals.’ It is said that he would look at a map of the Amazon and consider that land vacant because he thought that the natives were not people. He gave the order to kill all the protesters after becoming frustrated that everything closed for seven days and nights. The CONAIE arranged the protest.” (qtd. in 22 June Interview)
In conclusion, the communities outside Tena, Ecuador are a prime example of the continued violent protests and revolutionary acts that occur due to the imposition of globalized corporations. The acts alone demonstrate desperate communication to preserve identity, culture, agency and simply the right to keep their land which is so imbedded in their lifestyle. The continued intentional withholding of proper education within this region, and in Latin America overall, creates the disconnect between the indigenous peoples and the state in order for the state and globalized businesses to maintain their power distance to keep the open and easy access to oil and other resources at their disposal. The future of these communities and all indigenous peoples being affected by such activities is uncertain, but what is certain is that as long as the oil company maintains a pipeline without giving proper compensation to the property holders and constant oversight of the line itself, the nutrients and in the soil and water will be damaged beyond repair. The CONAIE and the indigenous peoples in the communities in Ecuador still struggle today and will continue to do so as long as the state allows global corporate incentives to overlook the basic fact that these too are people who deserve human rights.
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