2016 Articles

The Politics of Cultural Representation: Afro-Ecuadorian Narratives in a Plurinational Framework

Hale, Andrea

In 2008, the Republic of Ecuador created a new Constitution with a particularly salient feature: Plurinationality. Given the discursive trends across Latin America toward a politics of multiculturalism, this research is an attempt to understand the significance of cultural representations in relationship to multiculturalism. More specifically, this research focuses on ‘traditional’ Afro-Ecuadorian artists in Esmeraldas City, Ecuador, and their positionality in relationship to broader Ecuadoran society. The first section of the article focuses on the theoretical contextualization of the research: a discussion of the emergence of plurinationalism and the underlying assumptions of racial democracy that it evokes. The second half of the article incorporates the voices of many artists, musicians, academics, and activists to form an understanding of the ways in which they are part of the construction of Afro-descendant identity in Ecuador today.