| Summary: | As a contribution to the historical anthropology of
colonial processes and the politics of ethnographic
representation, I describe and analyse the work of European
travellers in the highlands of nineteenth century Ecuador a
a case study of the relationship between colonialism and
representation in a particular historical context. I
investigate European work through its practical application
in the ethnographic context of Ecuadorian spatial politics
and organization, as an alternative to the formal analysis
of literary strategies and political discourses within a
purely textual frame.
The validity of Europeans' vision of Ecuadorian space
is examined in relation to two different audiences. I
questioned the legitimacy of their accounts for twentieth
century anthropologists, as a basis for ethnographic
knowledge about the organization and politics of space in
Ecuador at that time. I also questioned the extent of their
legitimation by nineteenth century Ecuadorians, and whether
their work there came to be seen as a common-sense vision o
the world.
I address the concerns of these audiences through a
comparative analysis of European and Ecuadorian points of
view. The first section focuses on an ethnographic analysis
of spatial representation in the travellers' accounts: the
ways in which historical and cultural conditions limited
their consciousness of Ecuadorian points of view, but also the ways in which they successfully described local
organization of space. The second section focuses on a
discursive analysis of the travellers' work: the new
political languages which emerged as their scientific and
progressive conceptions of space were removed from their
intended discursive context and redeployed in the different
environment of Ecuadorian culture and history.
I conclude that the European accounts are valid sources
of ethnographic knowledge about the organization and
politics of space in Ecuador. Although travel accounts were
dismissed as legitimate ethnographies in early twentieth
century anthropology, they should be recognized today as
early examples of fieldwork and ethnographic writing before
anthropology became a professional discipline. Recognizing
these accounts as marginalized forms of ethnography can
contribute to current reflexive critiques of anthropological
practice. They contribute to an understanding of
anthropology's roots in the ideological tension between
romantic natural history and objective natural science which
continues to influence the discipline today.
The accounts also foreground the sites and relations
which have been excluded from more recent ethnographic
frames, such as the process of "getting there", the national
context and capital city which ethnographers pass through to
reach the "field", and the cosmopolitan intermediaries and
complex political negotiations involved in representing
local points of view. Recognizing these external relations contributes to recent arguments that ethnographies must
represent the larger global and national conditions through
which local encounters are mediated.
I also conclude that the Europeans were indirectly but
inevitably involved in Ecuador in the nineteenth century
process of imperial expansion. Their diplomatic services,
their natural scientific fieldwork and collections, and
their descriptive accounts, contributed knowledge which was
useful in Europe to assess the potential for market
expansion through trade relations and the extraction of raw
resources. On the other hand, an examination of their
influence in Ecuador, rather than in Europe, contributes to
a recognition that their more direct involvement in the
success of cultural colonialism was limited. Although they
had social influence and intellectual legitimation amongst
the cosmopolitan ruling elite of Quito, their ideas and
activity in Ecuador were not generally accepted as a commonsense
vision of the world. Furthermore, their work was
variously and ingeniously appropriated by different social
groups to bear unexpected meanings as Ecuadorians
constructed their own visions of nationhood and modernity.
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