CANCELED: What Does it Mean to Be From the Páramo? Ethnicity, Politics & Development in the Ecuadorian Andes

The UNC-Duke Abiayala group presents, ‘What Does it Mean to Be From the Páramo? Ethnicity, Politics & Development in the Ecuadorian Andes,’ with Luis Alberto Tuaza Castro, who is an Indigenous Kichwa scholar, and a professor and researcher at the National University of Chimborazo in Ecuador.

During October 2019 upheavals were led by the Indigenous popular movement in Ecuador. Government officials constantly indicated in public interviews: “The Indian must stay in the páramo” (The Andean High Plains), and not in the city. The response to these attacks increased a popular response in which Indigenous protesters and their allies constantly repeated: “I am from the páramo! We are all from the páramo!” This presentation will address the following questions: What does the páramo mean for Indigenous peoples? What political repercussion does the word páramo posses? What is the relationship between the páramo and Indigenous economic development?