Contested Ethnicities: New Pathways, New Challenges

Taking examples from Chile, Colombia and Ecuador, the following section analyzes the challenges, potentialities and ambivalences that the concept of ethnicity as a social category unfolds in practice. The examples show that although ethnicity is a modern colonial category that homogenizes and racializes non-“western” populations, it can also be used strategically (or be rejected) by ethnicized actors themselves, to mobilize, strengthen and articulate their own political projects.