President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) led the Ecuadoran Citizens'
Revolution that claimed to challenge the tenets of neoliberalism and the
legacies of colonialism. The Correa administration promised to advance
Indigenous and Afro-descendant rights and redistribute resources to the
most vulnerable. In many cases, these promises proved to be hollow.
Using two decades of ethnographic research, Undoing Multiculturalism
examines why these intentions did not become a reality, and how the
Correa administration undermined the progress of Indigenous people. A
main complication was pursuing independence from multilateral
organizations in the context of skyrocketing commodity prices, which
caused a new reliance on natural resource extraction. Indigenous,
Afro-descendant, and other organized groups resisted the expansion of
extractive industries into their territories because they threatened
their livelihoods and safety. As the Citizens' Revolution and other
"Pink Tide" governments struggled to finance budgets and maintain power,
they watered down subnational forms of self-government, slowed down land
redistribution, weakened the politicized cultural identities that gave
strength to social movements, and reversed other fundamental gains of
the multicultural era.