Gabriela Arguello, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Quito gabyarguello@hotmail.es

 

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Abstract:

The Law on Commune Organization and Regime was passed in Ecuador in 1937. This Law gave rise to the legal incorporation of civil society organizations, regularly linked to indigenous and peasant communities, under the label of comunas (communes). This legal framework fostered a series of administrative procedures between the communes and the State, which resulted in the creation of documents and the formation of the National Archive of Communes. These organizations and their documentary collection were under the administration of the Ministry of Social Security and Labor between 1937 and 1973, the period in which this research is framed. Thereafter, responsibility for this subject fell to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, which is where the archive is currently held. This article offers an approach to this repository in order to trace a thread of its history and to analyze its documents and the role that the indigenous communes had in the context of the urban development of the city of Quito.

Keywords : Ecuador, Quito, Archives, Communes, Urban development

 

Introduction

The Law on Commune Organization and Regime was passed in Ecuador in 1937. This Law gave rise to the legal incorporation of civil society organizations, regularly linked to indigenous and peasant communities, under the label of comunas (communes). This legal framework fostered a series of administrative procedures between the communes and the State, which resulted in the creation of documents and the formation of the National Archive of Communes.[1] These organizations and their documentary collection were under the administration of the Ministry of Social Security and Labor between 1937 and 1973, the period in which this research is framed. Thereafter, responsibility for this subject fell to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, which is where the archive is currently held. This article offers an approach to this repository in order to trace a thread of its history and to analyze its documents and the role that the indigenous communes had in the context of the urban development of the city of Quito.[2]

The repository houses a large collection of documents from communes throughout the country, dating back some eighty years. This documentation has been scarcely explored for research purposes. However, its documents have been consulted by the people of the same communes on a regular basis. The most commonly consulted documents are notarial deeds of sales and purchases, land maps of the area, ministry reports, and others that assist in settling land boundary disputes.

Social science has paid little attention to the subject of communes. However, the pioneering work of Eduardo Kingman,[3] drew attention to the importance of addressing this issue. Although the communes were legally constituted in 1937, with the issuance of the Law, it should be noted that they have existed for centuries. As Kingman has pointed out, communes refer to pre-Columbian settlements and to what later became known as colonial reductions.[4] The reductions were part of a socio-spatial reorganization promoted by the Spanish Crown since 1549 (linked to the Viceroy Toledo). Under the ‘urbanize to civilize’ logic, the reductions consisted of concentrating and relocating indigenous populations for economic reasons, social control and religious purposes.[5] The city’s evolution ended up incorporating the communes that were settled in the central and peripheral areas of Quito.

The communes were settled in both the central and peripheral areas where the city of Quito had developed. These populations were characterized by communal land ownership, by their own ethnic and cultural forms, but also by their constant and multiple relationships with the city.[6] Today, Quito has absorbed a series of spaces that precisely belong to these organizations. Currently, the Metropolitan District of Quito is made up of 46 rural and 3 urban communes.[7]

This research combines the study of the history of the repository with the study of three cases of these communes: Chilibulo-Marcopamba-La Raya,[8] an urban commune located in the south of Quito; and two rural communes: Llano Grande and Tola Chica, located to the north and to the east, respectively.

Fig 1: Case study map – communes of Quito. Drafted by: Gabriela Arguello

Source: Instituto de la Ciudad / Wikimedia Commons

For this purpose, I focus on the documents generated between 1937 and 1973 for each case study, which include communications sent and received by the Ministry, and reports from the parish political offices,[9] minutes of assemblies, and internal regulations of the communes, among others. These are bureaucratic documents that, at first glance, appear repetitive and standardized. Nevertheless, they bear the traces of numerous problems that contribute to the discussion on the communes and their historical relationship with the city (especially concerning labor supply).

Samples of these documents  have been digitised and deposited in the Archival-City Quito collection on the HumanNum open data platform Nakala. The following alphanumeric codes have been chosen for this dataset: ACQ02_llanogrande_GA; ACQ02_tolachica_GA; ACQ02_Chilibulo_GA where ACQ stands for Archival City Quito, 02 refers to the second dataset produced within Archival City Quito and GA stands for Gabriela Arguello. The content of each commune archive is detailed in the finding aid file ACQ2_FA_GA available on Nakala and will be referred to in the following pages.

This article is organized in two parts. The first, from an ethnographic perspective, introduces the archive and traces its history. The second part examines the materiality and content of a sample of documents from the case studies.

Historical and ethnographic approach to the documentary repository

Unlike archives classified as historical archives, which provide consulting services, the archives of state institutions, such as the ANC, do not welcome visits from outsiders. On the contrary, the researcher faces a challenge in accessing and consulting documents. Although the current Constitution guarantees access to public information,[10] in practice, the possibility and form of accessing these types of files is usually complicated. All too often, this depends not only on what the laws stipulate, but also on the decision and will of public officials. From my experience in the ANC, I can say that even when there is a standardized dynamic in the State processes, unpredictability is almost a rule in that context. In this scenario, the researcher’s ability to deal with uncertain scenarios is decisive.

I visited this repository for the first time a few years ago when I was doing research for my master’s thesis. It was then that I became aware of the quantity and age of the documents housed there. I also noticed the institutional limitations in managing and preserving the archive. It was in poor condition in a small and untidy room. Some documents were in boxes and others were on the floor. It was evident that there was a lack of specialized archive management personnel and little interest on the part of the institution in organizing and taking care of the documentation. Four years later, after a series of procedures, I had the opportunity to enter the repository again, in search of sources for my doctoral thesis research. This time, I could see that new criteria for documentation management and organization had been incorporated. At first glance, the enormous amount of documents seemed to be better organized.

The life cycle of the public document involves several levels and custody times.[11] Nevertheless, the documentation in this repository was accumulated for almost a century, without going through such a process. This represents a historical value for those of us who do research; however, for a public official, this is a purely bureaucratic matter. For the institution, such an archive is not material or symbolic capital, in the words of Pierre Bourdieu.[12] On the contrary, for the institution and its officials, the organization and administration of this abundant documentation seems to be a tedious and interminable task. Even so, it must be recognized that the repository has managed to keep some level of organization and maintenance over time.

Fig 2: Shelves – National Archive of Communes

Author: Gabriela Arguello

Although there is no technical system of organization, description, and cataloging, the documents follow a basic order, guided by three criteria: date, commune, and province. Each commune’s documents are organized in a file in chronological order. Each of these files is then placed in the corresponding Ecuadorian province. The oldest documents in the archive date from 1937 and the most current ones correspond to 2020. The state institution could be described as an accumulator of deeds,[13] which in this case holds decades of information on the social life of the communes, where different voices, both official and subaltern, can be traced.[14]

But how did this repository come to be? It came about as a result of the liberal policies[15] and, in particular, from the context of the Revolución Juliana (July Revolution) (1925),[16] the State embarked on new ways of organizing the indigenous population under its role of social protection.[17] The legislative proposals and debates that preceded the 1937 Law referred, among other issues, to the inclusion of the notion of “peasant community”, and the need to “integrate the communal groups, especially the indigenous, to the national civilization”,[18] to improve their welfare, progress, self-determination, and participation in democracy.[19] The commune had become a problem that needed to be solved.[20] A matter of concern, among others, was that “indigenous communities were not strongly subjected to the State authorities.”[21] In this context, the State resorted to several legal mechanisms that resulted in the approval of the Law on Commune Organization and Regime, in 1937.[22] This is how the legal concept of the commune was established and recognized as an administrative entity with its own town council, which is still in force today.[23]

Fig 3: 1937 Law on Commune Organization – 1st edition

Author: Gabriela Arguello

On the other hand, Article 4 of this Law provided that the communes would administratively depend on the Ministry of Social Welfare and Labor.[24] In general terms, one can say that the meeting point between the law and the institution led to the creation of the archive. Several articles of the Law, for example, state that the communes must keep books, registers, forms, minutes.[25] The Law also stipulates that these documents must be approved by the Ministry of Finance.[26] These guidelines gave way to a series of practices that were incorporated into the daily life of the new communes. Various procedures and communications between these organizations, the parish political tenures, and the Ministry gave rise to the documentation and, consequently, to the repository.

This archive, as is the case with other documentary collections, is “the result of the power relations that shape and crosscut it”.[27] In this case, the State and the Law represent that place of power, from a double dimension. On the one hand, there is the question of access. In my case, this required considerable time and a series of bureaucratic steps and negotiations. This scenario places the researcher in front of any one authority, faced with what could be called the State power or force.[28] Such a force has the power to tip the balance toward access or restriction. On the other hand, there is the question of the production of the documents and the repository. As shown above, the Institution has arranged, delimited, and supervised the produced documents and procedures within its parameters. We are thus faced with voices that speak out within the frameworks laid out by the State. We are also faced with documents that the State has been refining and classifying for many years.

As Marc Grebe explains following Elio Lodolini, the creation of the archive is a spontaneous process of document production: “as the documentary sedimentation of a practical, administrative, and legal activity».”[29] So what we now see as a properly established institutional archive is not the result of a decision to create it and begin to nurture and organize it. It is the result of a particular historical context, a series of public policies, state dynamics, and a lengthy process of relations between the State and civil society. It consists of accumulated documents that were not conceived and developed for the repository, but rather of the diverse interests of its producing agents. While the power relations involved in this type of archive, as well as the silences or the voices that do not appear must be considered, it is also true that this same place of power and this bureaucratic logic is what has allowed its production and preservation.

The communes and the city of Quito in the ANC

The ANC’s documents provide references on a variety of topics. For this study I selected a corpus of documents from three case studies, taking into account the period of interest (1937-1973), the geographic location (south, north, and east of Quito), and the type of commune (urban and rural). For the selection of the documents in each case, I used two types of variables: some related to the materiality of the document (type of paper, type of writing, graphic elements), and others related to the content (communications with a greater description of the communities and their link with the city, etc.).

Fig 4: Sample commune documents – case studies

Author: Gabriela Arguello

From this sample, the following section first examines the materiality and general content of the documents. Secondly, it analyzes how this archive documents the relationship between the communes and the urban development of the city of Quito, from two aspects: the communes’ provision of labor force for the city and the implications of the communes’ legal creation in the socio-spatial dynamics of the city of Quito.

The commune-institution relationship begins with the request made by a village (annex, hamlet, neighborhood, party, community, etc.)[30] to the institution in order to be legally recognized as a commune. “[I]nstitutions must operate by recording their actions”.[31] This relationship is therefore necessarily mediated by the document that makes it official.

Three main producing agents are identified in these documents: the Ministry, the communes, and the parishes’ political tenures. With respect to the place of production, most documents are produced outside the institution, in the communes or in the political tenures. As for the type of documentation, it consists mainly of ministerial certifications and agreements, telegrams, warnings, or calls for attention issued by the Ministry, reports from the political tenancies on the communes, claims, complaints, and various requests presented by the communards, land purchase and sale deeds, internal regulations, lists of inhabitants, minutes of assemblies, as well as minutes of election of commune councils.[32]

As far as the support is concerned, there is a wide variety of paper types with different sizes, colors, paper qualities, and formats. Among the graphic elements, ink stamps predominate (used mainly by the Ministry and by the political tenures). Although we can also mention the presence of fingerprints of illiterate community members (as shown on Fig. 5), header paper designs (letterhead type) and the printed forms to be filled out.[33] Printed and handwritten scripts are combined throughout the files.

Fig 5: Examples of supports, types of writing, graphic elements, etc.

Author: Gabriela Arguello

The document is not only a text. It is composed of several elements (text, support, graphics) that enable a visual and perceptive exploration of the document. To some extent, this materiality brings us back to the origin of the documentation. A stamp can lead us to the institution, while a fingerprint can lead us out of it. Following some reflections by Roger Chartier and Armando Petrucci, the very forms of the written objects and morphology can contribute to understanding the reasons and constraints that governed their production.[34] The documents produced in the communes, for example, reveal both their limitations and their strategies for dealing with an inescapable State approach.

In terms of content, the documents mainly provide references to the communes. They allow us to characterize the space and the population; understand their agency; know their organizational and land management rationale; and identify their needs and problems. Descriptions of the settlements, the history of council directives, references about their inhabitants (number, age, gender, occupations, kinship ties, ethnic self-identification, economic status), their communal assets and boundaries, their internal political tensions, as well as the tensions between the indigenous and mestizo sectors are all made available. Information can also be traced on infrastructure construction (roads, schools, communal houses, churches, sports fields, medical clinics), as well as on access to basic services, among others.

Although the law and the institution (which govern the communes) are part of a national context, the communes are related to other specific instances. The first and most direct is the parish[35] to which they belong and the next is the city of Quito. In the case of the Llano Grande and Tola Chica communes, these are attached to the parishes of Calderón and Tumbaco, respectively. During the period in question, both were located in rural areas, still distant from the city. However, they were connected to the city through various roads.[36] The Chilibulo-Marcopamba-La Raya Commune, on the other hand, was established in La Magdalena, a parish formally considered an urban parish[37] since 1910.[38]

Kingman explains that since the nineteenth century “[t]he indigenous communes not only had constant dealings with the haciendas but also with the cities and with the mestizo parishes”.[39] Historically, the areas surrounding the city have been used to supply the city with labor and raw materials: “[I]ndians were used to supply grass and firewood, to construct buildings, and as servants and nannies”.[40] It is precisely the archival documentation that reflects these relationships. One of the first assembly minutes of Chilibulo- Marcopamba-La Raya, from 1937, for example, indicates that, out of 461 adult inhabitants, the men were engaged in masonry and bricklaying[41] (presumably in Quito), and agriculture. The women, on the other hand, worked in the sale of mote (a variety of corn) and in domestic chores.[42] Likewise, a list of inhabitants of Llano Grande (presumably from the 1950s) records the number of 202 community members. The document indicates that more than 60% of these people worked in Quito, mainly as municipal employees, day laborers, domestic servants, and gardeners.[43]

The documents show that the city was, above all, a labor market or a place of economic exchange for the commoners. But the city also attracted them in social, cultural, and religious terms.[44] The documents also show, although to a lesser extent, the case of community members who settled in the city for other reasons: paperwork, and studies, among others.

From the spatial perspective, the documents allow for a characterization of the communal space over time. These documents show how the landscape of these communes was transformed by incipient processes of local urbanization and boundary marking.[45] Amid controversies, these organizations were reordering the space under their traditions and their logic of land ownership and administration.

Among other things, for example, an incorporation deed of the Chilibulo-Marcopamba-La Raya Commune, states that its extension is “20 caballerias[46], more or less”, and establishes its boundaries. In the case of the Tola Chica Commune, after a long process of disputes, the commune ended up divided into two: Tola Chica and Tola Grande.[47] Likewise, different reports show how works and services were incorporated to these towns. In the case of Llano Grande, it is noted that, in 1950, the community members donated or sold their land for the construction of works such as the sports field,[48] or that in 1960 the commune’s church and main road were under construction.[49]

The accounts recorded on documents from the period under study show distant and rural communes of Quito. However, the expansion of the city increased from the 1930s onwards[50] and, little by little, the urban sprawl extended over these communal spaces. By the end of the century, several of these spaces were already integrated into the urban grid. The city’s expansion and urban planning policies pose a series of contradictions with respect to the communal space rationale. This has led to problems of various kinds that merit further study for which this archive can be a valuable source of reference. The communes have often been made invisible or underestimated in these processes. Also, populations have disputed their space, claimed their rights, and articulated survival strategies therein.[51]

Conclusions

Although the ANC is not formally categorized, managed or conceived as a historical archive, it is a fundamental part of the traces of Quito’s social memories. This state repository keeps stories on paper that, despite formalities, reveal another side of the city’s past – that of those indigenous communes that have historically provided Quito with food and raw materials, and whose labor has been fundamental for the city’s history.

It is worth noting that public administrative documents are “places of conservation of the graphic testimonies produced by the subordinate classes”.⁵²  In this sense, although it could be argued that the institutional voice prevails in this state archive, in reality, what thickens the files is the documentation produced by the communes themselves and by the parishes’ political tenancies. These documents contain testimonies, claims, demands, reports from the communes, and also expose the various tensions and disputes that take place within the communes themselves.

A few general references have been sketched here aimed at understanding the potential and historical value of this repository for the city’s study and planning. However, the documents raise numerous problems, much more complex than what has been briefly referred to in these pages. For example, questions arise regarding the moments in which these communes are incorporated into the urban sprawl: how are the communes invigorated by the public policy promoted by the city through the municipality? What conflicts arise? How does the city stimulate the regulations applicable to the communes to prevent them, for example, from dividing and selling the land? The assumption is that these processes have not occurred without tensions and conflicts.

Finally, it remains to be said that the communes have been fundamental actors in Quito’s urban development process, and yet they have been invisible. Historically and still today, these populations have been facing a series of problems and needs as a result of economic and social inequalities. In this scenario, the city’s design, policies, and management must take into account the communal dimension of society and space.

The ANC invites us to think that the city of Quito has developed through a series of dynamics that we still do not fully understand. In this sense, its documentation can significantly contribute to a better understanding of the historical role and, consequently, the current place of these populations in the city.

Consulted repositories

National Commune Archive

Aurelio Espinoza Pólit Ecuadorian Library

Bibliography

Primary sources

National Technical Rule for the Organization and Maintenance of Public Archives. Quito. Presidency of the Republic. 2019.

Commune Law 1937.

Law on the National Archive System.  n. 92, 1982.

Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador, 2008.

Commune files: Llano Grande, Tola Chica, Chilibulo-Marcopamba-La Raya.

Secondary sources

Bloch, Marc. Apología para la historia o el oficio de historiador. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996.

Bourdieu, Pierre. “Génesis y estructura del campo burocrático Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, n. 96-97, 1993: 49-62

Bustamante, Teodoro. “Las comunas en las ciudades ¿tienen algún sentido?” In Quito, comunas y parroquias. Quito: Municipality of Quito / Board of Andalucía / Fundación Trama, 1992.

Chartier, Roger. “Prólogo: Morfología e historia de la cultura escrita”. In Alfabetismo, escritura, sociedad. Armando Petrucci. Barcelona: Gedisa, 1999.

Coronel, Valeria. “La revolución Gloriosa: una relectura desde la estrategia de la hegemonía de la izquierda de entreguerras” In La Gloriosa, ¿revolución que no fue? Santiago Cabrera edit. Quito: UASB-E – CEN, 2016: 75-94.

Crespo, Carolina y Tozzini, Maria Alma. “De pasados presentes: Hacia una etnografía de archivos.” Revista Colombiana de Antropología, Vol 47, n.1, 2011: 69-90.

Deler, Jean Paul. Ecuador: del espacio al Estado nacional. Quito: UASB-E / IFEA / CEN, 2007.

Grebe, Marc. “Littera scripta manet: formas y funciones del archivo en el Imperio de los Austrias. Simancas, Roma, Quito y Cuenca.” Procesos Revista Ecuatoriana de Historia, n. 35, 2012: 5-36.

Iturralde, Diego. “Las comunas indígenas y los anejos”. In Pensamiento antropológico ecuatoriano. Tomo II. Quito: BCE – CEN, 2006.

Jácome, Víctor. “El proceso fallido de disolución de las comunas urbanas en Ecuador: el caso de Santa Clara de San Millán, 1973-1986”. In Las comunas del Ecuador: autonomía, territorio y la construcción del Estado plurinacional” Edited by Rayner & Mérida. Quito: IAEN, 2019.

-“La lucha por el reconocimiento de las comunas indígenas urbanas de Quito: el caso de Santa Clara de San Millán, 1911-1990” (doctoral dissertation, UASB-E, 2023).

Jurado, Carolina. “Las reducciones toledanas a pueblos de indios: aproximación a un conflicto: El repartimiento de Macha (Charcas), siglo XVI”. Cahiers des Amériques latines. n.^o 47 (2004): 123-137. Doi: 10.4000/cal.7814. 124-126.

Karababikian, Graciela. “Archivos y Derechos Humanos. Las graves violaciones a los derechos humanos y el aporte de los archivos para el “Nunca Más”. In Archivística sin fronteras: Reflexiones sobre políticas de gestión, formación e investigación en archivos. María Elena Porras P. y Daniela Zúñiga Edit. Quito: UASB-ASF-CJE, 2019.

Kingman, Eduardo. “Comunas quiteñas, derecho a la diversidad”. In Quito, comunas y parroquias. Quito: Municipality of Quito / Board of Andalucía / Fundación Trama, 1992.

-La Ciudad y los Otros. Quito 1860-1940. Higienismo, ornato y policía. Quito: FLACSO, Universidad Rovira e Virgili, 2006.

-“Historia urbana: diversos enfoques” En Enfoques y estudios históricos: Quito a través de la Historia. Quito: Municipality of Quito, 1992.

Modonesi, Massimo. Subalternidad. Mexico: UNAM, 2012.

Municipio de Quito. Conociendo Quito: Estadísticas del Distrito Metropolitano. Quito: Municipality of Quito – Instituto de la Ciudad, 2013.

Muzzopappa, Eva y Villalta, Carla. “Los documentos como campo. Reflexiones teórico-metodológicas sobre un enfoque etnográfico de archivos y documentos estatales”,
Revista Colombiana de Antropología, vol. 47, n. 1, 2011: 13-42.

Ojeda, Lautaro. Políticas de bienestar social y participación popular en el Ecuador. Quito: ILDIS, 1988.

Paz y Miño, Juan. La Revolución Juliana en Ecuador (1925-1931): Políticas Económicas. Quito: MCPE, 2013.

–La Revolución Juliana: Nación, Ejército y bancocracia. Quito: Abya-Yala, 2002.

Petrucci, Armando. Alfabetismo, escritura, sociedad. Barcelona: Gedisa, 1999.

Porras, María Elena. “La etnografía de los archivos: el Archivo colonial como instrumento de poder. Reflexiones para un estudio de caso en el Ecuador”. In Archivística sin fronteras: Reflexiones sobre políticas de gestión, formación e investigación en archivos. María Elena Porras P. & Daniela Zúñiga Edit. Quito: UASB-ASF-CJE, 2019.

Prieto, Mercedes. Estado y colonialidad: Mujeres y familias quichuas de la Sierra del Ecuador, 1925-1975. Quito: FLACSO-E, 2015.

-Liberalismo y temor. Imaginando los sujetos indígenas en el Ecuador poscolonial, 1895-1950. Quito: Abya Yala – FLACSO-E, 2004.

Rayner, Jeremy y Mérida, Juan. Las comunas del Ecuador: autonomía, territorio y la construcción del Estado plurinacional”. Quito: IAEN, 2019.

Salvador, Jorge. Quito. Quito: Colecciones Mapfre, 1992.

Schijman, Emilia. “Etnografía de archivos administrativos. Un corpus de demandas y quejas menores en un barrio de vivienda social.” Revista Colombiana de Antropología, n. 2, 2010: 279- 305.

Spivak, Gayatri y Santiago Giraldo. “¿Puede hablar el Subalterno?” Revista Colombiana de Antropología n.^o 39 (2003) https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=105018181010.

Tupiza, Joe y Godard, Henri. Evolución de la mancha urbana de Quito (1760-2005).

Zapatta, Alex. Sistemas rurales-urbanos en el DMQ. Quito: Instituto de la Ciudad, 2013.

Zuloaga, Marina. “Las reducciones: El proyecto, su aplicación y su evolución en Huaylas, Perú (siglos XVI y XVII)” En Reducciones: La concentración forzada de las poblaciones indígenas en el Virreinato del Perú. Saito y Rosas Edit. Lima: NME – PUCP, 2017.

* I would like to thank the Archival City Project team for the support and guidance received for the research and writing of this article.

[1] Hereinafter ANC.

[2] This article deals with one of the chapters of my doctoral thesis called: The Urban Effect in the Transformation of the Periphery of the City of Quito between 1920 and the 1980s: the Case of the Rural Parish of Calderón. This space is made up of neighborhoods and indigenous communes, and to study it I worked with written and oral sources concerning the socio-spatial dynamics between the city’s center and periphery.

[3] Eduardo Kingman,1992; 2006. There is also recent research by the historian Víctor Jácome, 2023.

[4] Kingman, 1992: 29.

[5] These political entities integrated several urban localities under a common government (cabildo) and around a common treasury (caja de comunidad). There are clues as to how the reductions were assimilated and transformed by local groups and became autonomous political entities, thus creating their own republics under new identities (such as the indigenous community). See Zuloaga, 2017: 308-309, 343; Jurado, 2004: 123-137. doi: 10.4000/cal.7814. 124-126.

[6] Kingman, 1992: 33.

[7] Conociendo Quito, 2013.

[8] Local names composed of Spanish words or expressions and pre-Hispanic languages, mainly Kichwa.

[9] Parish authorities of the state judicial system.

[10] Article n. 18 numeral 2. Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador, 2008.

[11] National Technical Rule for the Organization and Maintenance of Public Archives, 2019: 7.

[12] Bourdieu, 1993: 6.

[13] I take Emilia Schijman’s thoughts on the ethnographic study of State documents on social housing in France as a starting point, 2010: 283.

[14] I use this term from the standpoint of the Indian Subaltern Studies Group. I refer to the indigenous commune populations of Quito, as subordinated sectors, historically impoverished and oppressed by their ethnic condition. See Spivak, Giraldo, 2003.

[15] Prieto, 2004: 26.

[16] This revolution was oriented against the banks and oligarchic hegemony. It brought about the “institutionalization of the social issue.” The Ministry of Social Welfare and Labor was created in this context on July 13, 1925 (MPST). See Paz y Miño, 2013: 45; Coronel, 2016: 80.

[17] Prieto, 2015: 15-19.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Prieto, 2015: 15-23.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Iturralde, 2006:184.

[24] Law on Commune, 1937: 19.

[25] Ibid, 1937: 20, 25.

[26] Ibid, 1937: 21, 23.

[27] Muzzopappa &Villalta, 2011: 18.

[28] Ibid: 15, 18.

[29] Grebe, 2012: 14.

[30] Law on Commune, 1937:19.

[31] Karababikian, 2019: 45.

[32] See on Nakala image ACQ02_llanogrande_img001_GA.JPG to image ACQ02_llanogrande_img0471_GA.JPG ; image ACQ02_tolachica_img001_GA.JPG  to image ACQ02_tolachica_img018_GA.JPG; image ACQ02_chilibulo_img001_GA.JPG to image ACQ02_chilibulo_img021_GA.JPG.

[33] Idem.

[34] Chartier, 1999: 11-12.

[35] The parish is one of the lowest levels in the political-territorial division of Ecuador. It can be traced back to the colonial period. See Deler, 2007: 379.

[36] In the 19th century, there was already a road network that connected several of the rural parishes and their small towns with the city. See Kingman, 2006: 107.

[37] However, one cannot presume that this parish had typical features of urban space, much less that it was integrated into the city. In this case, the documents show that, by the mid-twentieth century, they did not even have roads to transport fertilizer to their lands (largely destined for cultivation). Annual Commune Report. (1954 & 1955). See on Nakala images ACQ02_chilabulo_img019_GA and ACQ02_chilabulo_img020_GA.

[38] Sistemas Rurales y Urbanos en el DMQ, 2013: 17.

[39] Kingman, 2006: 97.

[40] Kingman, 1992: 19.

[41] Construction activities.

[42] Commune constitution report, November 15 1937. See on Nakala image ACQ02_chilabulo_img001_GA and image ACQ02_chilabulo_img002_GA.

[43] List of inhabitants. See on Nakala ACQ02_llanogrande_img001_GA to ACQ02_llanogrande_img011_GA.  Kingman. “La ciudad y los …, 135.

[44] Kingman, 2006, :135.

[45] Institutional Report. August 05, 1940. See on Nakala ACQ02_tolachica_img006_GA and ACQ02_tolachica_img006_GA.

[46] Length measurement.

[47] Institutional Report. August 05, 1940.See on Nakala ACQ02_tolachica_img006_GA and ACQ02_tolachica_img006_GA.

[48] M-Suquillo Deed & y Pichincha P Council Apr 24 1950.See on Nakala ACQ02_llanogrande_img012_GA to ACQ02_llanogrande_img018_GA.

[49] Communication claim church construction. Oct 13 1959. See ACQ02_llanogrande_img042_GA.JPG.   Communication transport resolutions. Jan 24 1961. See on Nakala image ACQ02_llanogrande_img043_GA.JPG to image ACQ02_llanogrande_img047_GA.JPG.

[50] Since the third decade of the twentieth century, “the process of peasant migration to the cities accelerated and the expansion of Quito began on a large scale”.  Salvador, Quito, 1992: 312.

[51] This article is a summary of a research report, which contains more detailed information on the topic presented.

⁵² Petrucci, 1999: 29.

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