For the past week and a half, we've been hard at work on our case studies, learning about (attempted and sometimes de facto) privatization of natural resources in Ecuador, and running around the city during interviews with some really incredible people. We are pretty sure our case studies will be two different organizations that were both active in the Coalición por la Defensa del Agua (the Coalition in the Defense of Water), which was a coalition of organizations from 2004 to 2007 successfully fought against the attempted privatization of water in Quito. One organization, the Foro Urbano (Urban Forum), connects different networks of social movements (particularly focusing on womens' movements, land invasions, poor neighborhoods, and student groups) in order to shape public policy. The other organization is Ecuarunari, the sierra branch of the CONAIE, a highly political indigenous organization that is probably has been the most powerful social movement in Ecuador for the past three decades. We finalized the decision to focus our Quito fieldwork on these three organizations some time ago; the remaining uncertainty is over which two of these three groups will best fit into the comparative framework of our project.
We've also been interviewing some people who were members of the Constitutional Assembly that spent the past 8 months writing a new constitution for Ecuador. It's extremely progressive, outlawing the privatization of natural resources, giving fathers the right to paternity leave, recognizing that housework is a job that deserves rights such as social security and retirement, and declaring Ecuador to be a peaceful territory and kicking "all" foreign military bases (i.e. the U.S. military base in Manta, which is the only one) out of the country (U.S. military forces will likely relocate to Colombia). There were 130 assembly members, and we've interviewed several very, very powerful ones and have interviews lined up with more. And, in one of the most exciting moments of my technological life, I sent a text message to the president of the Constitutional assembly! It would be hard to overstate Nicole's excitement over this text message...
It hasn't been all fun and games, however. In order to be able to interview leaders of Ecuarunari, we needed to get the authorization of the president of the organization, who was out of Quito's province until Wednesday. I was very nervous for our meeting with him, because just two weeks ago he went on CNN to say "enough with the foreign academics who come and steal our information to use against us." It's a very valid critique of academia and Western involvement in Latin America-- and made me terrified to talk to him! I agree with Nicole that this critique is incredibly valid and important, but I was always confident we'd win him/them over. It's a similar story everywhere, but once we get to talk to leaders face to face, we have a fairly endless stream of references (movement organizations in Ecuador and neighboring countries) and examples of our social justice projects that show that we are "not just academics."
This morning, Andrea, Araminta, James and I went to the museum of Oswaldo Guayasamin, the most famous Ecuadorian painter who was named the official painter of Ibero America. There are two museums, one of which displays some of his art as well as his massive collection of pre- Columbian art, as well as the "Chapel of Man" which is too incredible to describe. Really, it's worth coming to Quito just to see these museums. To give you a sense, I've pasted here some of Guayasamin's work. My favorite set of Guayasamin paintings is a series of five massive portraits of evil, leering, conspiratorial, hideous, terrifying men. When I first saw it, I just loved it. I told Andrea so, and she couldn't imagine why I liked it so much. I wasn't really sure either, but then I saw the title, and it all made sense: "Meeting at the Pentagon."
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