FEMINIST ARCHAEOLOGIES FROM THE BORDERS

This autobiographical contribution by a Latin American woman archaeologist explores the challenges and political positionality toward becoming an archaeologist and practicing collaborative, community-based research with African descendent and Indigenous peoples of Ecuador. Historically, Ecuadorian archaeological research and the construction of official historical narratives have demonstrated a lack of engagement with the survivance and resistance of African and Indigenous peoples. In this context, through the examination of living in the borderlands as a “New Mestiza,” the author shares her life experience coming from a working-class mestizo family where women had a crucial influenced and guided her activist contribution to a Latin American social archaeology by fostering affective networks between women of different backgrounds.