Contribution short abstract:

The paper examines how Kichwa women from Otavalo understand and engage with three core concepts driving Ecuador's poverty eradication policies. Through case studies of midwives and cultural managers, it shows how they negotiate state perspectives while advancing their own agency.

Contribution long abstract:

The proposal is part of a research that arises from a critical questioning of the policies, discourses, conceptions and strategies that revolve around the eradication of poverty and inequality in Ecuador since the approval of the 2008 Constitution, in its Plurinational and Intercultural State dimension. The analysis focuses on the tension between the state vision, which has characterized Indigenous women as passive beneficiaries of redistributive policies, and the reality of their political and economic agency in their communities. The geographical context is the city of Otavalo, located in the Ecuadorian highland. The population of Otavalo, which according to the 2010 population census reached 104,000 inhabitants, 57% self-identify as indigenous, and 40% recognize themselves as mestizos. This demographic characteristic, present in not many Ecuadorian cities, makes Otavalo and its social, political, and economic dynamics a scenario of interest among those who dedicate their analysis to inter- and intra-ethnic relations.

The paper presents part of the results of an extensive ethnographic work. This specific case explores the perspectives of Kichwa women of the Otavalo and Kayambi peoples on three fundamental concepts that directed poverty eradication policies in Ecuador: Poverty, development, welfare and social welfare. Taking as a case study the community midwives of the Otavalo canton and the cultural managers of the Otavalo and Kayambi peoples.

It examines how these women negotiate and dispute the imaginaries constructed about their identities, and how they strategically use these constructed representations to expand their spaces for political, social and economic action.