When Cultural and Natural Patrimony Collide: Sovereignty, State Power, and Political Strategy among the Picapedreros (Stonemasons) of San Pablo, Ecuador

This article examines the case of the picapedreros (stonemasons) of San Pablo, Ecuador, and their politico-legal battle to gain patrimonial mining status to continue extracting white andesite rock from an area located in Chimborazo National Reserve in order to create decorative items for sale and sustain their craft of sculptural stonework. In the context of an extractivist boom in postneoliberal Ecuador, and state policies that guarantee both the rights of Nature and of human well-being, or sumak kawsay, the San Pablo case demonstrates both the power and limitations of state sovereignty over natural and cultural patrimony. It also shows the tensions between essentialist and structural definitions of patrimony; the strategic political uses of patrimony by state and citizen actors; the contradictions within the state's sumak kawsay discourses and policies; and the lack of clarity around diverse national, regional, and local sovereignties, given the state's ultimate power to intervene or not on behalf of natural and cultural patrimony.