Este texto tiene un carácter exploratorio a partir de la experiencia etnográfica del levantamiento indígena y popular que paralizó Ecuador en el mes de junio de 2022. Con epicentro en Quito, la capital del país, dicha movilización fue la más larga de todas las que ha protagonizado el movimiento indígena ecuatoriano desde la década de 1990. El artículo reflexiona sobre las características de esta última protesta; señala sus diferencias con respecto a las movilizaciones de los años noventa y de los primeros años de este siglo XXI; y plantea algunas hipótesis sobre la nueva generación de líderes que están al frente de la organización indígena más importante del país, la CONAIE (Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador). El argumento principal que se explora es que la adopción de discursos y repertorios de protesta más orientados hacia una dimensión clasista que hacia una puramente etnoidentitaria ha sido la clave en la mayor capacidad de convocatoria del movimiento. Esto se reflejó en el masivo respaldo al llamado de la CONAIE contra las medidas neoliberales adoptadas por el Gobierno nacional.

Official Ecuadorian gross domestic product (GDP) data begin in 1950. Prior, only preliminary estimates were available, based on very scattered evidence and broad assumptions. In this paper, we estimate new GDP figures for Ecuador for 1900–50. These are based on the quantitative and qualitative information available for the period, using extensive primary and secondary sources. The new data series allows analysing Ecuador’s economic growth and structural change and comparing them to industrialised core countries and other countries in the region. Unlike previous estimates, our series shows a sustained divergence of Ecuador from the core countries during the first half of the 20th century.

Neurocysticercosis (NCC) is a neglected parasitic disease that causes neurological symptoms. However, little is known about the long-term impact of this infection on health. We contacted participants from a randomized controlled trial on albendazole treatment for NCC in Ecuador 12 years after trial completion (14–16 years after NCC diagnosis) about their long-term health. We described the symptoms experienced post-trial and investigated if albendazole treatment, the presence of calcified NC cysts, and cysts in extraparenchymal locations at last imaging predicted symptoms. All analyses were standardized by adjusting for participant age and sex. In the 12 years post-trial, 52.1% reported some health problem, with 48.9% reporting neurological symptoms such as seizures (16.6% of participants) and headaches (26.6% of participants). At the end of the trial, 11 participants had complete NCC cyst resolution, of whom 3 (27.3%) reported seizures and 1 (9.1%) reported headaches post-trial. Twenty-four participants had only calcified cysts (residual calcification sometimes left after the parasite dies) by trial end, of whom 8 (33.3%) reported seizures and 9 (37.5%) headaches post-trial. None of the predictors examined were significantly associated with long-term symptoms. A high proportion of people diagnosed with NCC continue experiencing symptoms years after treatment, and while slightly fewer people experienced continued symptoms in the albendazole group, the difference was not statistically significant. Eleven participants with no live parasites at last imaging (8 with residual calcifications) had seizures post-trial, which may be unprovoked and an indication of epilepsy risk. Research is urgently needed to improve NCC treatment to mitigate long-term outcomes.

Neurocysticercosis is a poorly understood infection of the central nervous system with Taenia solium larva, and the treatment often fails to kill all the parasitic larva. Most research on this infection has used patient-level data, looking at summaries of the encysted parasitic cysticercus burden. Cyst-level analysis is needed to identify factors that impact individual cyst trajectories and how that may vary based on characteristics of the patient, infection and cyst being followed. We disaggregated data on 221 cysts from 117 patients who participated in a trial evaluating the impact of albendazole treatment to identify factors that impact cyst evolution over time from the active to the degenerating and calcified phases, and eventual resolution. We found that having calcified cysts at baseline was associated with a faster rate of transition from the degenerative phase to calcified phase or resolution. Age and sex were not associated with cyst evolution in the main effect analysis, but after stratifying on treatment we found that the direction of some associations by patient age and sex was reversed for patients in the albendazole arm compared to those in the placebo arm. These findings suggest that differences in host immune response by sex and age as well as by past exposure, potentially indicated by having calcified cysts together with active cysts at baseline, are important to cyst evolution and may be modified by treatment. Future research is needed to assess if these differences suggest distinct treatment recommendations.

Burial 10 is a unique Manteño (AD 650–1532) burial from Buen Suceso, Ecuador, dating between AD 771 and 953. This burial included the remains of a young female, pregnant at the time of death and buried with an elaborate array of goods, including anachronistic spondylus ornaments, green stones, and shell eye coverings. Perimortem trauma, including a cranial fracture and cutmarks on hand bones, perimortem removal of the hands and left leg, and other body manipulation suggest she was sacrificed, a rare event for coastal Ecuadorian peoples.

Much scholarly attention has been paid to how great powers have used development finance as a tool for projecting power and shaping the international order, with less given to how smaller countries navigate these dynamics. This article investigates the conditions under which Latin American countries borrow from institutions led by the declining hegemon, the United States, or the rising power, China. Specifically, it uses mixed methods to analyze 518 loans from the World Bank and Chinese banks, and interviews with policymakers in Ecuador to highlight the mechanisms of decisions, outline interactions between different factors, and identify factors that cannot be readily tested statistically. Results show that countries are diversifying their development finance between the two great powers, motivated by domestic political considerations such as party ideology and economic development priorities, as well as by international structures including the balance of power and the borrowing country’s foreign policy alignment with the United States.

Ecuador is a key area in South America when it comes to understanding the economic, social and archaeological aspects of pre-Hispanic cultures in the northwestern region of the Andes. Among the most complex societies to have inhabited this territory is the so-called Manteño culture (AD ∼800–1530), which spanned across most of Ecuador’s central Pacific coast. Ongoing research at the site of Ligüiqui (Manta, Manabí) has enabled us to obtain a more complete overview of the chronological sequence of the Manteño period as well as contributing further data on the advanced stage of social development reached during the period; characterized by the hierarchical arrangement of sites, the use of extensive settlement models, and semi-circular stone fish traps (corrales). In order to understand the role played by this coastal site in the complex Manteño culture, a detailed radiocarbon study was performed in the sequence of the Ligüiqui site. In addition, using a detailed review of available Manteño settlement radiocarbon data (13 sites and 64 dates), we established a chronostratigraphic framework for the culture. Our data indicate that Ligüiqui probably acted as a supply centre for marine-origin products from the twelfth century onwards with activity peaking during the Late Manteño period. A multisite comparison using Bayesian modeling indicates an early onset of the Manteño culture in Ligüiqui around AD 700, and a general demise in most of the sites AD ∼1500 or slightly before. This culture finally collapsed before AD ∼1600 during the early Spanish colonial period. Only one site, La Libertad, shows potential evidence of having remained a Manteño settlement after that date.

This article presents an approach to study marronage from the perspective of critical social archaeology, which encompasses the perpetuation of several layers of racial violence endured by the Afro-Ecuadorian population as legacies of slavery and colonialism. Collaborative and community-based projects in the ancestral Afro-Ecuadorian territories of the Chota Valley and Esmeraldas, and in the city of Guayaquil, are a basis for mapping Afro-Ecuadorian resistance strategies in the hacienda, urban, palenque, and border contexts. Marronage, as a response to racial oppression and systemic exploitation, has transformed over time, demonstrating the agency of the Afro-Ecuadorian community against structural violence. Archaeology illuminates the Maroon experience and its legacy in ancestral historical memory by including a critical study of slavery in the household context of plantation settings, identifying the dynamics of oppression and resistance, mapping routes of fugitivity, and examining the networks connecting actions of marronage. This study is an essential step in reconstructing the neglected history of Afro-Ecuadorian resistance and its role in shaping Latin America.

Este artículo teoriza las relaciones entre la ciudadanía y el Estado ecuatoriano durante el primer año y medio de la pandemia COVID-19. Basado en una metodología cualitativa de entrevistas, las perspectivas de los participantes revelan relaciones contradictorias con el gobierno características de los estados de seguridad neoliberales, pero también de patrones (pos)coloniales persistentes de exclusión racista y clasista: por un lado, un sentido de abandono del Estado, particularmente en salud pública y educación; y por otro lado, la fuerza represiva del Estado en su uso de medidas militares y policiales y de estados de excepción. Proponemos el término estado disperso para referirnos a estas tendencias opuestas de simultánea ausencia y presencia estatal. Argumentamos que las respuestas ciudadanas a la ausencia estatal incluyen cierta aceptación del retorno de las funciones educativas y sanitarias a comunidades, hogares e individuos, provocando de todas maneras nuevas formas de adaptación y creatividad cultural. En cuanto a la presencia represiva del Estado, los participantes expresaron apoyo considerable hacia medidas estatales autoritarias, frecuentemente justificadas por discursos esencialistas sobre el carácter de la ciudadanía nacional.

Fuel subsidies have been an enduring policy in Ecuador’s political and economic history. Given their lack of targeting and high opportunity cost, they have been amply criticized. As of 2017, the Ecuadorian government started a budget consolidation plan that so far has involved seven reforms to subsidies policy in less than seven years. In late 2019, in response to social unrest motivated by a temporal elimination of fuel subsidies, the government pledged to study new targeting mechanisms for this policy to mitigate the impact on the most vulnerable sectors. This work seeks to contribute to that effort by evaluating the macroeconomic effects of these subsidies and serving as a guideline for targeting. A computable general equilibrium model is used to assess counterfactual scenarios. The results suggest that by implementing progressiveness and productive linkage criteria, targeting household final consumption and intermediate consumption is a feasible way to reduce the reforms’ negative effects.