In search of 'respect': Culture, authority, and coercion on an Ecuadorian hacienda.

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of the relationship between Quichua-speaking indigenous laborers, indigenous authorities, and Hispanic-mestizo bosses on an hacienda in Chimborazo province, Ecuador, during the first six decades of this century. It is based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork among former hacienda laborers and archival research. The focus is the nature of authority on the hacienda and the question of hegemony. The study contributes to the ongoing reconsideration of Andean culture and its relationship to domination and resistance, and examines the cultural strategies of persuasion associated with coercion on the hacienda. Principles of reciprocity and redistribution were fundamental to indigenous understandings of social relations, of the authority of elders and ritual leaders, and of agricultural production. The relationship between the hacienda and indigenous laborers can be seen in part as a conflictive pact of reciprocity, in which the hacienda gained some legitimacy through providing laborers with land and other benefits. At the same time, laborers condemned the hacienda for its failure to treat labor as a favor, its 'stinginess' with respect to distributions and pasture, and its orientation to indefinite accumulation. One expression of this critique was the tradition that landlords were in league with the devil, who made their plantings fertile. Individuals' compliant or defiant stances towards hacienda authority were strategic choices heavily influenced by coercion. At the same time, such stances were linked to moral judgments and gender conceptions. There was an implicit debate among laborers themselves, as well as with bosses, over the moral interpretation of hacienda labor and discipline. The terms of the debate were drawn from the domain of symbolic representations and practices associated with 'respect' (respeto). Indigenous ritual authorities were responsible for maintaining 'respect' through moral vigilance, guidance, and correction, including ritual admonishment and punishment. Hacienda authority played a similar role, and the two types of authority were indeed overlapping and mutually supportive. 'Respect' was at once an aspect of Hispanic domination and a theme in indigenous culture, the language of coercion and a symbol of morality. As such it also helped shape the interpretation and outcomes of resistance.