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La pandemia de COVID-19 ha significado una crisis importante para el Ecuador. Afectó gravemente a la situación económica de la población e implicó decisiones inmediatas en materia educativa, así como incertidumbre y expectativas negativas en lo laboral. Como experimento social involuntario, mostró los quiebres en tres tipos de conocimientos: el conocimiento práctico y cotidiano de la población, el conocimiento científico y sobre la ciencia, y el conocimiento emocional. La formación de estos conocimientos facilita a la difusión de información falsa, la incomprensión de la ciencia, y la confusión emocional. Para esto, el artículo se basa en una encuesta de alcance nacional a más de 2.000 hogares en el Ecuador, levantada entre mayo y julio de 2020. Estos datos permiten una revisión de los impactos sociales de la pandemia, incluyendo las estructuras pre-existentes que los hicieron posibles.

Truth is always a reduction of complexity. The various aspects of an observed phenomena are reduced to only those that relate to how truth is defined by the observer. In this sense, social sciences create society by applying theories that define what is truth to it. This logic becomes a problem when the social sciences in question do not reflect a wide range of different theories that can complement and criticize each other, providing a more complex observation and, thus, a more complex truth. This is the case with some social sciences of the Global South, especially, in early stages of their institutional and organizational development. However, decisions made in early stages of a system can only be changed with considerable effort later on. There tends to be an effect of path dependency, especially in organizations engaged in social sciences in the Global South. This article will explore the mechanisms of production of truth and thus of reduction of complexity by Marxist critical sociology in Ecuador, between the 1960s and 2010. A focus will be the institutionalization of these mechanisms in organizations and the augmentation of complexity within critical sociology, usually connected to certain ideas of politics and sciences.

Universities are, like all organizations, at the intersection of different functional subsystems. They are not only dedicated to research (science) and teaching (education) but are also place for communications that form part of politics, economics and so on. But, what happens to universities, and, more precisely, social sciences in university, if the social system they work in is not differentiated in the way the social sciences in the Global North are used to? What if there is no clear distinction between science and politics? Does academic autonomy lead in this situation to some kind of ‘university as a subsystem’, complete with its own code and autopoiesis? Or will the different subsystems de-differentiate increasingly, as predicted by Luhmann? This contribution will analyse social sciences in Ecuadorian universities as an example for organizations at the intersection of functional systems that are not fully differentiated. The development, the operative closure, the institutionalization and the self-production of a concrete discipline under constant pressure of other social systems will be analysed. The goal is a further insight into processes of differentiation in the Global South and the role of institutions in these processes. Part of this is the attempt to actualize and criticize Niklas Luhmann’s approach of systems theory to regions outside of the Global North. JEL: O300, Z130

Viele soziale Bewegungen unterhalten Bildungsstrukturen, die die staatlichen ersetzen, verändern oder ergänzen sollen. Diese Anstrengung ist meist darauf ausgerichtet, zum einen einen besseren Zugang zu Bildung im weiteren Sinne für die jeweilige Zielgruppe anzubieten, zum anderen aber, auf diskursiver, organisatorischer und politischer Ebene, die soziale Bewegung selbst zu stärken und in der Gesellschaft zu verankern. In diesem Sinne ist Bildung ein Instrument sozialer Bewegungen. Die Indigenenbewegung Ecuadors hat seit ihrem Beginn in den 1930ern systematisch eigene Bildungsstrukturen aufgebaut, die die vom Nationalstaat gelassenen Lücken füllen sollten. Diese zuerst klandestinen Schulen wurden zunehmend anerkannt und in staatliche Strukturen integriert bis hin zur Schaffung einer von den Indigenenorganisationen autonom verwalteten staatlichen Behörde der interkulturellen zweisprachigen Erziehung 1988, die bis 2009 in diesem Sinne funktionierte. Die indigenen Bildungsstrukturen waren bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt ein Freiraum für die Bewegung, ein Zugang zu Ressourcen für ihre Mitglieder und eine Strategie der Verankerung der Organisationen in den indigenen Gemeinden. Gleichzeitig haben interne Bildungsstrukturen der Indigenenorganisationen zu ihrer Entwicklung entscheidend beigetragen.

The 1970s and 1980s meant an ethnic politicization of the indigenous movement in Ecuador, until this moment defined largely as a class-based movement of indigenous peasants. The indigenous organizations started to conceptualize indigenous peoples as nationalities with their own economic, social, cultural and legal structures and therefore with the right to autonomy and self-determination. Based on this conceptualization, the movement developed demands for a pluralist reform of state and society in order to install a plurinational state with wide degrees of autonomy and participation for indigenous nationalities. A part of those demands was the double strategy to fight for legal pluralism while already installing it at the local level. Even if some degrees of legal pluralism have been recognized in Ecuador since the mid-1990s, in practice, the local de facto practice prevails until today. Another central part of the demand for plurinationality is the representation of indigenous peoples in the legislative organs of the state, developing since their first appearance in the 1940s in a complex way. This article will analyze the development of right-based demands within the discourse of the indigenous movement in Ecuador, the visions of the implied state-reform and the organizational and political background and implication they have. Based on an analysis of the central texts of the indigenous organizations, conceptualizations of rights and laws and their appropriation within an autonomist discourse and a local practice will be highlighted.