Race,state and nation in early twentieth century Ecuador*

ABSTRACT. This article aims to explore the ways in which the tensions involved in nation‐building and state consolidation during the half‐century following the Liberal Revolution of 1895 in Ecuador were refracted through the locus of race and the manipulation of racial ideologies. It centres the state as the primary motor of nation‐building and racialisation, arguing that nation‐building and state formation in Ecuador operated in close conjunction, and that race was central to each. Through case studies of citizenship, education and the integration of territory and resources, it explores how state discourse and policy shaped the racial boundaries of national inclusion, and how these were negotiated and contested by subalterns at the level of the state.