ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the significance of colonization as a focus of anthropological research, and offers some preliminary observations based on limited research in two areas of new colonization in Ecuador. It describes a detailed typology of colonization. The chapter identifies two major types. The first, external colonization, involves expansion into a distant or non-contiguous geographic area. The second type, internal colonization, with which people are concerned in the Ecuadorian case, involves the extension of a sociocultural system either within its own national territory or into adjacent foreign territory not under its immediate governmental control. The area of colonization of Santo Domingo is situated at the western base of the Sierra between Quito and the coast and in large part within the province of Pichincha. The chapter indicates the reasons for conviction that the many instances of internal colonization in the modern world provide a fruitful and hitherto largely neglected subject for anthropological study.
