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This Palgrave Pivot presents a concise yet comprehensive history of sociology in Ecuador. The case of Ecuador is especially interesting, as Ecuadorian sociology oscillated between theoretical debates—some of them out of time—and a constant search for ways of applying them to the local reality. In the decades after its formal creation in 1915, early academic sociology in Ecuador worked creatively with already outdated theories around positivism and organicism to understand the indigenous population's position, the regional fragmentation, and the formation of a coherent nation-state in Ecuador. After a short attempt of installing a more technical sociology in the 1960s, those topics were taken up and re-read by Marxist-inspired critical sociology after the 1970s, leading to the nation-wide institutionalization of one particular tradition that could connect to continental debates. This book engages with several relevant debates in social sciences and humanities, particularly by adding tothe thriving research on social sciences and the role of the university and higher education in Latin America. Furthermore, it touches some recently influential topics in sociology: Ecuadorian sociology can be read as Southern Theory or engaged with from a postcolonial or decolonial perspective; the research on how ideas travel, are diffused or localized is vital for understanding sociology in Ecuador; the relation between academia and politics; and more.

Die Indigenenbewegung ist trotz ihrer enormen Diversität ein wichtiger sozialer Akteur in der ecuadorianischen Gesellschaft. Seit einer Sattelzeit zwischen Mitte der 1970er und Mitte der 1980er Jahre hat sie einen Diskurs herausgebildet, der identitäre mit klassistischen Positionen verbindet und um die politischen Begriffe indigene Nationalität, Territorialität, Plurinationalität, Interkulturalität und Gutes Leben herum aufgebaut ist. Philipp Altmann zeigt, wie sich dieser Diskurs gegen die koloniale Strukturierung der Gesellschaft und ihre Auswirkungen - wie etwa Diskriminierung und Ungleichheit - wendet und daher dekolonial zu verstehen ist.