From construed invisibility to forced visibility: Indigeneity in Ecuador

During the first half of the 20th century, thanks to the implementation of touristic development policies contextualized in the development paradigm and in the boom of new scientific disciplines such as Anthropology and Psychology, the representation of the Ecuadorian indigenous person was associated with the exotic obtaining vast social recognition going froma construed invisibility to a forced visibility, making their culture known worldwide. The methodology used for the investigation is a broad archival review: libraries, private and public archives, written media, such as national newspapers and flyers from the period studied.However, categories of race are embedded within broad notions of the nation state, international relations and central to Ecuadorian history and politics. Being agentive under these circumstances means that those who are labelled within those categories must not only be aware of the categories themselves but must also engage with the discourses that produced those categories in the first place.