Nicole, Queen of Macas: The Impact of Salaried Work on Trans Activism in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Abstract

This article focuses on the importance of wage labor in the trajectory that led Wilo / Nicole, a trans Shuar person, to be an indigenous transgender activist. Starting from the traditional gender relations in the Shuar world, I show how wage labor allows the existence of new life forms. At the same time, these new ways of life are limited by the labor market, which assigns homosexuals and transvestites specific economic activities: beauty and sex work. It also restricts the kind of alliances and activism that can take place. Changing the scale, I show that capitalism also provokes and limits indigenous activism through the process of colonization and militarization of the border between Ecuador and Peru. In other words, wage labor provides the condition, the provocation, the enemy and the limits of trans activism in the Ecuadorian Amazon.