Dr. Maximilian Viatori

My research looks at dynamics of social exclusion and their contestation, primarily in South America. Between 2001 and 2006, I studied Indigenous activists in lowland Ecuador and their experiences with recent economic and social reforms. This project is the subject of my first book, One State, Many Nations: Indigenous Rights Struggles in Ecuador. At present, I am studying narratives of national unification that emerged during Ecuador’s border disputes with Peru and the role these narratives played in reinforcing domestic paradigms of racial exclusion in Ecuador. I am also working on new ethnographic projects in Peru and Canada.

Research Interests
Latin America; Ecuador; Indigenous peoples, ethnicity and race; activism and social movements; nation-states and nationalism; language and public discourse.

Representative Publications

Forthcoming. Loss and Amazonian Otherness in Ecuador. Invited submission for special issue: Discourses of Loss in the Amazon. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. (26pp.)

2009. Re-imagining Amazonia (review article). Focaal: The European Journal of Anthropology 53:117-122.

2008. Soccer Nationalism: Ecuador and the World Cup.  City & Society 20(2):275-281.

2008. Gender and Indigenous Self-Representation in the Zápara Nationality of Ecuador.  Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 3(2):193-203.

2007. Speaking Sovereignty: Indigenous Languages and Self determination. (With Gloria Ushigua)  Wicazo Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies 22(2):7-21.

2007. Zápara Leaders and Identity Construction in Ecuador: The Complexities of Indigenous Self-Representation.  Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 12(1):104-133.

2005. New Bodies, Ancient Blood: “Purity” and the Construction of Zápara Identity in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America 3(2):175-195.