Multiculturalism and the subordination of indigenous justice in Ecuador: the seductive discourse of the other

Abstract

Multiculturalism became the discursive basis of colonialism and therefore of neoliberal capitalism. With a seductive proposal for the creation of others whom it supposedly respects, but considers different, exotic, artifacts to be civilized, it legitimizes conquest, exploitation, evangelization and the construction of a western civilizing hegemony, within a border separated by the modern, global and developed world. In Ecuador, this concept is not debated in its entirety, but it is contrasted with the concept of interculturality, which is assumed in direct relation to everything ancestral or indigenous. The article discusses the conceptual aspects of multiculturalism and interculturality, where various organic events of the indigenous movement are exposed and analyzed from an ethnographic perspective, finding a state of convenience of an exercise in multiculturalism. On the other hand, an analysis of the encounter between the indigenous jurisdiction versus ordinary justice is developed, analyzing the prevalence that exists of the latter over the former, and evidencing the need for a leap into an intercultural space. Thus, the article reveals a convenience of the multiculturalist discourse, from the leading elites of the indigenous movement, in the face of a need for intercultural exercise for the dynamics of the bases of this social actor.