AN EXERCISE IN WORLDMAKING 2009 - ISS

36 JONATHAN CONNOR
2002: 297). In turn, the success of these participatory initiatives and the
growing incidence of successful indigenous organization drew the attention
of (new) external actors and development schemes. Therefore, the
emergence of participatory local governance in Guamote cannot be
solely attributed to popular mobilization nor to external interventions by
state and civil society actors; both appear to be crucial variables in the
canton’s transformation. A third factor that merits brief mention here is
the notion of economic marginality. As Cameron (2003: 183) notes, “It is
no coincidence that participatory processes emerged and indigenous and
peasant mayors were elected in some of the poorest cantons in highland
Ecuador”. Guamote did not possess oil, gas and minerals, nor was it a
large agro-export county. In this sense, the canton was “marginal to the
interests of capital” (Bebbington, 2007: 72). Had there been more lucrative
economic opportunities in the region, powerful economic actors
would have certainly resisted political and economic restructuring that
challenged their power and threatened their interests in the municipality.
The transformations outlined in this paper represent one the most innovative
cases of local governance in Ecuador. However, Guamote’s
success is not without limit. Problems of exclusion and representation
have not disappeared completely. Given the centrality of indigenouspeasant
identities to Guamote’s OSGs and local development initiatives,
there is a danger of marginalizing the canton’s non-indigenous and nonpeasant
members. Similarly, there has been a noticeable underrepresentation
of women in local initiatives. For example, Cameron (2003) has
noted the “extremely low representation of women” in Guamote’s Indigenous
and Popular Parliament. Despite legislation to increase female
candidacy for political office, women tend to be elected to “the lowerranking
posts with less control over budgets and management” (Radcliffe
et al., 2002: 300). It should be noted, however, that these tendencies
are much more pronounced at the provincial and state level, and
there is growing evidence that municipalities such as Guamote are overcoming
gender imbalances.
A more pressing issue in Guamote is the relative absence of economic
development. Despite dynamic changes in the canton’s political organization,
economic growth has been slow and is much less obvious. Income
remains extremely low, with all three of Guamote’s parishes exhibiting
“poverty rates of near or above 90 percent of the population”
(Bebbington, 2000: 507). For many, agricultural production continues to