Abstract

VILLARREAL VELASQUEZ, José Antonio. Plebeian leadership in Guayaquil 1970-1980: ceremonial behavior, ritual acts, and state building. e-Rev. Multidiscip. Saber [online]. 2025, vol.3, e-RMS08022025.  Epub June 25, 2025. ISSN 2960-2467.  https://doi.org/10.61286/e-rms.v3i.151.

The memories of the inhabitants of a working-class neighborhood regarding the ritual behavior of those who became what will be termed plebeian leaders are influenced by the processes of economic industrialization and state modernization, which caused social, economic, and political modifications. Rural-to-urban migration increased rapidly, leading to sustained growth in urban centers, albeit in a disorganized and inequitable manner. In Guayaquil, migrant populations and the urban poor fostered "land seizures" (tomas de tierra), from which new processes of political subjectivation and plebeian leaderships emerged to confront societal inequities. To recover and reconstruct the memories of the ritual behavior of plebeian leaders, oral history is used as the primary method. Through a reflective and interdependent actor who learns, deploys, and modifies ritual acts, cognitive schemes, dramaturgical skills, roles, and moral bonds, their housing cooperative and the power of the State are analyzed. Furthermore, historical evidence regarding the contradictory role that the leader plays in the processes of plebeian political subjectivation is presented. Alongside their constituents, plebeian leaders learn to insert themselves and operate within the discursive frameworks and structural changes that occur at different historical moments of the social world they inhabit. They resist, adhering to orders of domination. The sacred character of the plebeian leader, produced within ritual acts, gave meaning to land possession in the 1970s. Simultaneously, their housing cooperative was articulated to the city, and the power of the State was (re)constructed.

Keywords : memory; socio-political practices; ritual acts; plebeian leadership; Guayaquil; State.

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