International Discourses of Domesticity in Ecuador: Race, Gender, and the Home in Missionary Work and Modernization Projects, 1900–60

Secularization was central to the Liberal project of nation-building in post-1895 Ecuador. Yet key reforms designed to undermine the Catholic Church and uphold the power of the state, such as the freedom of worship act, the institution of civil divorce, and the requisition of Church landholdings, coincided with a massive surge in missionary activity among Indian communities in both the highlands and the Amazon region, which was both state led and state endorsed. This reflected Liberal perceptions that indigenous culture represented such a threat to modernity that Indian “civilization” and transformation by whatever means was essential, as well as recognition of the limitations placed on social policy by the fiscal weakness of the state. 

This paper will examine the gender dynamics of both Protestant and Catholic missions, emphasising the focus on domesticity in the strategies and techniques they employed. Foreign missionaries brought with them particular gender norms and ideologies, centred around the idea of a dependent and protected femininity, and actively sought to transform the role and status of indigenous women. Missionaries sought to reshape indigenous family patterns to match the nuclear ideal, and to transform divisions of labour to minimise women’s role in agricultural production and to bring them more fully into the sacred space of the “home.”  North American Protestant missions in particular emphasized evangelical Christianity as a form of female emancipation.  The paper will assess the tensions involved in such encounters and formulations, analyzing especially the response of indigenous women to such discourses.  The paper will demonstrate that a focus on missionary activity can provide a fresh window into the centering of domesticity in the shaping of race, gender and nation in early twentieth century Ecuador.