Límites y Linderos: Una interpretación decolonial de los conflictos territoriales en la Región Norte de Esmeraldas durante los finales del siglo XIX.
Abstract
This thesis examines the interactions between Anglo-American mining companies and
Afro Ecuadorian communities in the northern region of Esmeraldas province, Ecuador
during the late nineteenth century. Specifically in these interactions, the thesis
analyzes the territorial conflicts that emerged between the mining companies and communities
based on their opposing conceptualizations of land and their different definitions
of land use and ownership. In analyzing the conflicts, the thesis aims to provide
a decolonial interpretation, meaning it gives value to both Afro Ecuadorian and Anglo-American
legal frameworks, philosophies in order to depict the tensions and conflicts between
the two groups in a more equitable fashion.
Based on primary research at government archives in Ecuador and private document collections
in the United States, the thesis recreates a historical narrative in which a mining
company’s corporate documents and letters to shareholders are juxtaposed with interviews
of community members and oral histories passed down from generation to generation
in the community. The thesis also incorporates government maps, public notary entries,
land sale contracts and diplomatic correspondence from several major government archives
in Ecuador: The Archive of the Ecuadorian Central Bank in Esmeraldas, The National
Archive of Ecuador in Quito, The Archival Library at the National Assembly of Ecuador
in Quito and the Library of the Ministry of Foreign Relations in Quito. In addition
to the government archives, community interviews and recordings of community members’
oral traditions were obtained from the Afro-Andean Document Collection at the Universidad
Andina Simon Bolivar in Quito.
In addition to research at document collections and government archives, personal
correspondence between company executives and original preliminarysurvey maps of the
region were obtained from the private family collection of the granddaughter of the
vice president of the Anglo-American mining company.
Description
Honors Thesis, Winner of the James Rolleston Prize for Best Honors Thesis in a Foreign
Language
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Romance StudiesPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/7068Citation
Leon, Evan Michael (2013). Límites y Linderos: Una interpretación decolonial de los conflictos territoriales
en la Región Norte de Esmeraldas durante los finales del siglo XIX. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/7068.Collections
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