Lived experiences: Capturing the heritage of Ecuadorian women

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The Esmeraldas region of Ecuador is home to the country’s biggest Afro-descendant population, historically a marginalised community that suffers negative impacts from the extraction of natural resources from their territories.

Against a context of poverty and instability, a research collaboration between Northumbria University, the Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador, and black feminist arts organisation Mujeres de Asfalto Collective, sought to explore the heritage of black and Afro women living in Esmeraldas. This was done through participatory methodologies, with funding from The British Academy and the Global Challenge Research Fund’s heritage, dignity and violence fund.

The RECLAMA study began in late 2019, to explore ways in which heritage can be used to support sustainable and gender equitable development.
Katy Jenkins, professor in international development at Northumbria University’s Centre for Global Development and project lead, says it was important for the work to give visibility to women’s experiences.

“For them, what was really important was the opportunity to be able to tell more positive stories around black women and their agency in this very difficult context where black women are generally not visible,” she says. “If they are, they’re often portrayed either as victims or in a highly sexualised way, so it was really important to everyone involved that there was an opportunity to bring to the fore and celebrate very diverse forms of Afro-Ecuadorian women’s culture.”

Research direction

At the heart of the project was the training of 16 Afro-Ecuadorian women as peer researchers, who conducted life history interviews to capture the knowledge of older generations, recording stories and making them accessible as part of a permanent community archive.

Mujeres de Asfalto Collective, led by Juana Francis Bone, led a two-day hybrid training event, where the peer researchers were coached on practical elements such as using recording equipment, and issues around ethics and consent.

Increasing insecurity in the region created additional difficulties and the project needed to pause a couple of times to ensure researchers could travel safely.

Shared histories

The research explored memories, experiences and knowledge with Afro-Ecuadorian women, and asked them to share ideas on issues around sustainable development. The 60 life history interviews to emerge covered themes including dance, poetry, song, traditional dress, food and cookery, and spiritual practices. With this knowledge typically shared and passed down orally through generations, in many cases the work was the first time knowledge had been formally recorded.

“It has been important to get recognition and visibility for the really diverse forms of Afro-Ecuadorian women’s knowledge that exists in the community,” says Jenkins.

Participants also produced a range of artwork to reflect and represent their heritage, including postcards, photography and recipes, with work exhibited in Esmeraldas and Quito, Ecuador, as well as in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Findings have also been shared with national and international dignitaries, including the mayor of Esmeraldas and the British ambassador in Ecuador.

The researchers are now looking at how they can develop resources for schools in Ecuador, as well as working with partners in the country to “impact on policy and on the curriculum”, says Jenkins.

“We want to develop a set of resources that we can use in schools with children to ensure that positive, diverse representations of black and Afro women are visible... and to work with partners in Ecuador to use these narratives and resources to make positive change and have more positive representations of black and Afro women in the public sphere.”

Project website: proyectoreclama.wixsite.com/reclama

This article was first published in the April 2023 issue of Impact.