ABSTRACT
The history of ethnic statistics in Ecuador is intriguing because of the contrast between the importance of indigenous struggles and indigeneity in the national and international perception of this country and the smaller number of indigenous population that repeatedly shows up in censuses since the first national census was taken in 1950. A long-term debate regarding Ecuadorian censuses relates to the multiple reasons for the undercount of the indigenous population. In contrast, the Afro-Ecuadorian population has more recently shifted from its historical invisibility in the eyes of the state1 to becoming a sizable part of the population according to official statistics. The montubio group, made up of rural mestizos from the Ecuadorian coast, has become politicized as an ethnic movement2 and has joined official statistical counts in 2010. This article will discuss the articulations between dominant political interests, social movement struggles, and the changing statistical representations of the Ecuadorian population. More specifically, the article argues that in a context in which CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador) has opposed government development policies, and in which Afro-Ecuadorian and montubio leaders have preferred non-confrontational corporatist political strategies3, it has been convenient for the state to show smaller indigenous numbers in the census while rendering these other two groups more visible.
