Public and Hidden Economies in Atuntaqui (Ecuador): The Challenge of Sustaining Cooperation in Textile Production

En el año 2000, el programa de mejora de calidad de Atuntaqui, las inversiones conjuntas en marketing y las iniciativas culturales, fueron diseñadas para influenciar el poder de la cooperación estratégica. Con el transcurso de varios proyectos de desarrollo, sin embargo, las interacciones sociales se tornaron más inclusivas y más polémicas. En este artículo introducimos la idea de una economía pública y la contrastamos con teorías del capital social más limitadas con el fin de explicar los beneficios que resultaron de pasar de una producción escondida al comercio abierto para Atuntaqui. Con los datos obtenidos de una investigación de campo que se extiende por siete años, este artículo documenta la manera en que la presión del crecimiento rápido de la manufactura y los errores cometidos en la administración de proyectos cívicos han socavado la participación pública y se han cerrado frente a características importantes de la economía pública. El artículo concluye con observaciones sobre cómo revivircolaboraciones mas robustas a través de la diversificación de los participantes locales, mediante el fortalecimiento de la cámara de comercio y el reconocimiento e inclusión de grandes olas de nuevos pequeños productores.In the 2000s, Atuntaqui’s quality improvement program, joint marketing investments, and cultural initatives were designed to leverage the power of strategic cooperation. Over the course of several development projects, however, social interactions became more inclusive and more contentious. In this paper, we introduce the idea of a public economy and contrast it with narrower social capital theories to account for the benefits of Atuntaqui’s move from hidden production to an open trade. With data from field research that spans seven years, this article documents how the pressures of rapid manufacturing growth and the missteps in managing civic projects have undermined public participation and closed off important features of the public economy. The paper concludes with observa­tion about how to revive more robust collaborations through diversification of local participants, strengthening of the chamber of commerce, and recognizing and including the large wave of new, smaller producers.

Economic Clusters or Cultural Commons?: The Limits of Competition-Driven Development in the Ecuadorian Andes

Abstract: We examine here two Ecuadorian towns and the state's efforts to support their development through competitiveness initiatives. Neoliberal, economic globalization is often equated with the insecurities of market competition. However, economic policy makers do not foment competition as much as competitive advantage. Whereas competition requires individual know-how, competitive advantage often involves cooperating to improve the underlying factors that help whole groups of firms. In Ecuador, policies have sought to engineer competitive advantage by creating industrial clusters. In our study, the town of Atuntaqui embraced the idea of clusters, uniting firms to work with international consultants and the Ministry of Industry. The economy has improved, but wealth shows signs of consolidation. The comparative case is a mechanized indigenous craft economy in Otavalo. Exploring how Otavalo's development has generated a set of shared resources anchored in a market plaza, we argue that its economy is best understood as a cultural commons. The experiences of both places have shown that economic development must take explicit measures to defend such commons if the gains of strategic cooperation are to be sustained in the long run. Resumen: Examinamos dos ciudades en Ecuador y el esfuerzo llevado a cabo por el estado para apoyar su desarrollo a través de iniciativas basadas en la competitividad. La globalización económica neoliberal es asimilada con la inseguridad de los mercados competitivos. Sin embargo, los responsables de la política económica no fomentan la competencia tanto como la ventaja competitiva. Mientras que la competencia se relaciona con conocimientos prácticos individuales, la ventaja competitiva requiere de cooperación, con el fin de mejorar factores subyacentes que beneficien a grupos de firmas en su conjunto. Las políticas implementadas en Ecuador para generar ventajas competitivas se fundamentaron en la creación de clusters industriales. En nuestro estudio, la ciudad de Atuntaqui aplicó la idea de clusters a través de la unión de firmas para trabajar con consultores internacionales y el Ministerio de Industria. La economía ha mejorado y la riqueza muestra signos de estar consolidándose. El caso comparado es la economía de tipo artesanal, mecanizada e indígena en Otavalo. Explorando la forma como el desarrollo de Otavalo ha generado un conjunto de recursos comunes, anclados en una plaza de mercado, argumentamos que la mejor manera de comprender esta economía es como un espacio cultural. La experiencia de ambas ciudades muestra que el desarrollo económico debe tomar medidas explícitas para defender estos espacios culturales, si se busca que las ganancias de la cooperación estratégica sean sostenibles en el largo plazo

Introduction: Popular Economies and the Remaking of China–Latin America Relations

Chinese investments and loans have increased rapidly over the last fifteen years in Latin America and the Caribbean, as has state-to-state cooperation. From the megaprojects of the Nicaraguan Canal and the transcontinental Brazil–Peru railway—reminiscent of Imperial investment fever a hundred years ago—to countless road construction projects across the region, Chinese state-supported enterprises are at the forefront of the present round of infrastructure building. This investment envisions a new century of trans-Pacific connections and global commerce. Latin America’s politicians and private contractors collaborate with Chinese enterprise across diverse sectors—agribusinesses in soybean production in Brazil and Argentina, and mining, oil, and natural gas operations in the Andean countries—praising the scale and pace of investment as a milestone for Latin America’s future economic growth. Activists and scholars see the same development as entrapping the economy in neo-extractivism, in a renewed dependence on primary resources that violates indigenous, social, and ecological rights

The Rise and Fall of Cheap Chinese Goods in Ecuadorian Popular Markets: The Limits of Post-Neoliberal Development in Correa's Ecuador

In contrast to its neighbors Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has used tariffs to regulate the supply of imported Chinese-made goods. This article reports on research carried out in 2015 in relation to traders and manufacturers in four cities in the northern Ecuadorian Andes: Otavalo, Atuntaqui, Ibarra, and Tulcan. It focuses on Chinese-made apparel and describes the business practices and economic aspirations of the parallel trading diasporas—one Quichua, the other Chinese—that embraced these textiles. Some domestic manufacturing has benefited from tariffs and a newly active state. However, since Ecuador's fiscal “dollarization” crisis of the early 2000s, many indigenous traders have shifted to marketing Asian and especially Chinese-made goods as a way of preserving livelihoods and commercial diasporic communities. With profits pushed to near zero, informal, culturally encoded habits of credit and professional courtesy have taken on an outsize role in the survival of not just individual enterprise but entire trading communities

Economías públicas y escondidas en Atuntaqui (Ecuador): los desafíos de la cooperación sostenible en la producción

In the 2000s, Atuntaqui’s quality improvement program, joint marketing investments, and cultural initatives were designed to leverage the power of strategic cooperation. Over the course of several development projects, however, social interactions became more inclusive and more contentious. In this paper, we introduce the idea of a public economy and contrast it with narrower social capital theories to account for the benefits of Atuntaqui’s move from hidden production to an open trade. With data from field research that spans seven years, this article documents how the pressures of rapid manufacturing growth and the missteps in managing civic projects have undermined public participation and closed off important features of the public economy. The paper concludes with observa­tion about how to revive more robust collaborations through diversification of local participants, strengthening of the chamber of commerce, and recognizing and including the large wave of new, smaller producers. En el año 2000, el programa de mejora de calidad de Atuntaqui, las inversiones conjuntas en marketing y las iniciativas culturales, fueron diseñadas para influenciar el poder de la cooperación estratégica. Con el transcurso de varios proyectos de desarrollo, sin embargo, las interacciones sociales se tornaron más inclusivas y más polémicas. En este artículo introducimos la idea de una economía pública y la contrastamos con teorías del capital social más limitadas con el fin de explicar los beneficios que resultaron de pasar de una producción escondida al comercio abierto para Atuntaqui. Con los datos obtenidos de una investigación de campo que se extiende por siete años, este artículo documenta la manera en que la presión del crecimiento rápido de la manufactura y los errores cometidos en la administración de proyectos cívicos han socavado la participación pública y se han cerrado frente a características importantes de la economía pública. El artículo concluye con observaciones sobre cómo revivircolaboraciones mas robustas a través de la diversificación de los participantes locales, mediante el fortalecimiento de la cámara de comercio y el reconocimiento e inclusión de grandes olas de nuevos pequeños productores

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Abstract Malware defenses have primarily relied upon intrusion fingerprints to detect suspicious network behavior. While effective for discovering computers that are already compromised, these systems are not designed to stop the spread or damage of malware. Standard gateway firewalls can prevent outside-based attacks; however, they are ineffective in a mobile network where threats originate from inside and administrators have limited control over client machines. This paper introduces a new strategy for malware defense using security authentication which focuses on vulnerabilities rather than exploits. The proposed system uses a remote security scanner to check for vulnerabilities and quarantines machines using logical network segmentation. This maximizes the usefulness of the machine in question while preventing attacks. Furthermore given the unique ability to quarantine machines without any specialized host software, the proposed system can defend against internal malware threats in a mobile network. Positive results have been achieved utilizing a proof-of-concept model and standard networking tools.

Postcolonial perspectives on aid systems in multicultural contexts: Palestine and Uganda

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