Queer histories and identities on the Ecuadorian coast

The Personal, the Political, and the Transnational

Abstract

This article looks to critique the heteronormative discourses with which both authors grew up in Ecuador in the 1970s and 80s. We do this through a thorough archaeological and historical analysis of Ecuador’s past, but always looking to destabilize the heterenormative discourse which has served as a hegemonic stronghold that has not only strangled the day-to-day livelihood of several generations of Ecuadorians but in a similar way served as an ideological vice on national historical production and culture. It is our hope that through the ethnohistorical, ethnographic and archaeological material discussed in the article we are able to express a more realistic picture of the sexual and gender diversity present in this part of the Americas during pre-Hispanic (and even contemporary) times.