Description:

A Talk by Dr. Marc Becker, Truman State University.

Talk Description:Indigenous communities have long organized against their economic exploitation and racial discrimination in Ecuador. Their activism culminated in a series of protests in the 1990s that opened up new political spaces and significantly shifted discourse leftward. In 2006, Rafael Correa successfully campaigned as an outsider who took advantage of these political openings to win election to the presidency of the country. Subsequently, however, the popular president and the social movements that placed him in power came into sharp conflict over competing visions for the country’s future.

Bio: Marc Becker is professor of Latin American history at Truman State University. His research focuses on constructions of race, class, and gender within popular movements in the South American Andes, with a particular research interest in the history of Indigenous movements in Ecuador. Marc is the author of Pachakutik: Indigenous movements and electoral politics in Ecuador (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011), Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador's Modern Indigenous Movements (Duke, 2008), and a forthcoming book on FBI surveillance of Ecuadorian leftists in the 1940s.