Identifying Indigenous people: Visual appearance, filiation, and the experience of race in an “Indigenous” soccer championship and in everyday life in Otavalo, Ecuador

Abstract While Indigenous/ mestizo distinction in Latin Americanist anthropology has been mainly thought of as a cultural and/or socioeconomic demarcation, I argue that conceptualization terms race offers some valuable insights. Starting from soccer championship the Otavalo region Ecuador, show how otavaleño Indigenous people's historical and current experiences racialization have shaped criteria they consider relevant to identification practices, illustrate build on these act advantage. Building assemblage what call phenotypization—an extended notion phenotype—and genealogy, otavaleños create spaces control, striving maintain divide sense belonging upon which rely for economic activities. Favoring race, this study lays groundwork considers people part same subaltern category Afro‐descendants.