Missionary Engagements, Extractive Histories, and Indigenous Land

This research project aims to study the entanglements and discrepancies between indigenous understandings of history and colonial narratives created by missionary intervention amongst the Shuar people of lowland Ecuador.

It will examine how history, indigenous memory, and cultural transmission have been developed and produced in the context of missionisation and colonial pressure.

It aims to understand how colonial history still impacts indigenous politics today, shaping current indigenous engagements with large-scale resource extraction and allowing extractive capital to endure and perpetuate over time.

To achieve these objectives, this research reviews the historical archives available in the region from the Salesian and Franciscan missions since the late 19th century, will collect and archive film footage of testimonial memories from indigenous participants on their complex relationship with the missionary endeavours and boarding schools, and will map how missionary presence shaped indigenous land.

The use of these three different methodologies will be combined to provide a clear ethnographic study that aims to understand and describe the long-term effects of colonial entanglements on people’s attitudes, thinking, and current political developments.

Overall, this research project is concerned with colonial residues and proposes to look at land demarcation, history, and cultural transmission to understand not only the impacts of colonialism in its tangible political ubiquity but also in its pervasive and intangible influence over concepts that help people define their worldview.