ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a critical reading of constitutional advances in Ecuador from the perspective of indigenous peoples. It draws attention to the continuity of power structures based on Western hegemony imposed on the originary peoples and seeks to show the epistemic complexity underlying indigenous claims. A plurinational state must effectively recognize and foster a new structural arrangement so that indigenous territorial autonomies can come to terms with their respective duties and responsibilities within the political-administrative division that prevails today, so that the political autonomy derived from indigenous institutions that have been created within the state can be administered by the originary peoples according to their uses, customs, norms and procedures, and thus strengthen democracy. The construction of appropriate forms or mechanisms as the product of intercultural interpretation is what would enable a transformational constitutionalism to materialize, capable of promoting a true plurinational state sustained by an economic model free of inequalities.
