ABSTRACT
In the recent history of Latin American states, nationalism and nationhood were key rationales for the interventions by the military during the 1970s. One key to national identities in Ecuador is the role of the military who are everywhere in evidence as military personnel but also as entrepreneurs and bankers. The promotion of an indigenous account of Ecuador and Ecuadorean national identity has further prompted a reaffirmation of African-Ecuadorean identity with the hyphenated designation already in place. Current debates and political action in relation to the remaking of the nation and national identities place ethnicities and racisms at the forefront of the struggles but these sites of struggle are also gendered and part of a re-visioned identity politics. The chapter focuses on to the ways in which the national story in Ecuador divides women through the processes of racialization and by the boundaries of the 'imagined community'.
