Making Waves: Fluid Notions of Citizenship in Early Twentieth-Century Ecuador

In the early twentieth century indigenous peoples in the canton of Otavalo, Ecuador found themselves increasingly the focus of laws designed to integrate them into the national fabric and modernization projects.  Accompanying these were initiatives designed to increase state and elite control of lands and waters to which indigenes previously enjoyed access.  These included regulations on uses of streams, rivers, lakes and adjacent lands.   Indigenes responded to these threats in a number of ways,  including protest and vandalism, while also exercising their rights as citizens through litigation and petition.