Crumbs from the Table: Participation, Organization, and Indigenous Women

Using the analytical tool of counter-topography (as developed by Cindi Katz), the chapter describes the interconnected processes through which Kichwa and Tsáchila women (whose names in their own language are introduced) are positioned as race-gendered, rural, low-income subjects in Ecuador’s uneven development, and the consequences this has for their embodiments, social relations, and livelihoods. The chapter draws out the differentiated nature of their positionalities and compares the two groups in order to disentangle ethnic, regional political economy, and national political historical factors that coconstitute them as similar but differentiated “indigenous women.” A fine-grained contextualization that draws on individual women’s narratives and life histories, the chapter documents relations of work and economic insecurity, education, resources, embodiments, and forms of agency. The chapter ends with a summary of indigenous women’s critiques of mainstream development projects and programs, and these critiques are analyzed in light of their specific positionality at the margins of development thinking about social heterogeneity.