Since 1990, when Ecuador's national indigenous organisation, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), coordinated a country-wide strike that set it on a trajectory to become Latin America's strongest national indigenous organisation, much ink has been spilt on its origins and evolution. In this book, Emma Cervone examines a regional indigenous organisation, Inca Atahualpa, in the highland parish of Tixán, within the national context of the politicisation of ethnic identity. At the local level, Cervone is particularly interested in connecting the ‘lived and affective dimensions of identity in quotidian politics’ among the Quichuas of Tixán and the political actions and strategies of their grassroots organisations. Cervone's ethnographic immersion in Tixán in the early 1990s, combined with several years of living and working in Quito, well equipped her to link the national and local dimensions of indigenous organisation; this provides a level of analysis not commonly seen in more discrete accounts of national-level social movements often written by political scientists and sociologists, or local-level studies typically conducted by anthropologists.

The first two chapters of the book provide a political and social history of life on the haciendas that dominated much of the region until the 1960s and the modernisation of Tixán as land and other reforms broke up the hacienda system. The story of Inca Atahualpa's formation involves inter-ethnic relationships among Quichua, chagra (mixed-race people who do not identify as Indians) and Tixán townspeople (non-indigenous). Chapter 3 focuses on quotidian encounters among these three groups in marketplaces, grocery shops and eating houses, and through ritual kinship. In chapter 4, Cervone examines the land struggles of the 1980s and 1990s that were crucial to the creation (in 1988) and growth of Inca Atahualpa. In chapter 5, Cervone analyses one of Inca Atahualpa's greatest successes: the system of derecho propio, or indigenous justice, that acquired a large degree of legitimacy among its members as well as among many non-member indigenous and non-indigenous people in the region. Chapter 6 details the celebration of the summer harvest festival; in this chapter, Cevone highlights the link between cultural performative and organisational politics, and the key role of the progressive Catholic Church in the early years after Inca Atahualpa's formation is also discussed at some length. Chapter 7 situates Inca Atahualpa within national-level politics; in this chapter Cervone contrasts the ‘recognition’ phase of the 1990s with the ‘post-recognition’ period of the 2000s. In the book's concluding chapter, Cervone reflects on the myriad changes experienced by Inca Atahualpa in the intervening years between the bulk of her fieldwork and the present political moment in Ecuador. The book ends on a sobering note: Inca Anahualpa's influence in the region has declined, and the organisation, she suggests, operates largely as a tramitador (that is, preparing paperwork to acquire development monies).

Readers familiar with indigenous politics in other regions of Latin America will find much that is recognisable in the Inca Atahualpa case study: the importance of land reform and struggles over land, the key role of the progressive Catholic Church, and the ways in which ethnic, racial and socio-economic demands are intertwined. The recognition and post-recognition phases that Cervone describes for the Ecuadorian case will also be familiar to students of Latin American politics and policy. CONAIE has focused more on class-based demands (such as anti-globalisation and anti-free trade) in the post-recognition phase of the 2000s; the ethnic demands foregrounded in the 1990s have been less visible in the post-recognition period.

A well-written and coherently organised book, Long Live Atahualpa will be of interest to scholars, graduate students in anthropology and advanced undergraduates in anthropology, Latin American studies, political science and sociology. Of particular interest to scholars is Cervone's problematisation of dichotomies that often frame discussions of indigenous and identity politics: class versus ethnicity, centralisation versus decentralisation, unity versus fragmentation, essentialism versus constructivism, and quotidian politics versus organised political action. One of the reasons it is difficult even for accomplished scholars to avoid dichotomies such as the ones listed above is the question of measurement and degree. Events such as the summer harvest festival in Tixán, for example, are vitally important to the ethnic, social and political identities of Inca Atahualpa members and to the organisation as a whole, yet it is difficult to evaluate the impact of such festivals on larger political struggles. On the other hand, one of the advantages of working at the local level is that the boundaries among ethnic, racial and class demands are not nearly as marked. Cervone notes that the grassroots activists with whom she worked generally had a primary-level education and were mostly self-trained in political activism; local leaders ‘remain strongly tied to the lived experience of domination posed by the local distribution of power and resources and to local networks of social relations’ (p. 23). It can be quite challenging, then, to connect local organisational politics and discourse to national-level indigenous politics, given the differing meanings and demands at various levels, or scales, of organisation.

There is a long-standing debate among students of indigenous politics in Latin America about the impact of the multicultural reforms of the 1990s on indigenous organisations. In short, did ‘neoliberal multiculturalism’ ultimately strengthen or weaken these movements? Some scholars have suggested that indigenous peoples took advantage of these spaces and became important political actors, able to influence public policy and exert political power. Others have argued that these reforms had the effect of sanctioning a certain type of indigenous leader, the ‘indio permitido’, thereby marginalising more outspoken and progressive leaders. Cervone sees some truth in both sides of this debate. On the one hand, she argues that the decentralisation initiatives that accompanied neoliberalism in Ecuador, with all their contradictions, have been advantageous to indigenous organisations and to indigenous candidates seeking election at local levels. On the other hand, she argues that Latin American states have sought to regulate diversity, not incorporate it into state functions. Cervone's account of Inca Atahualpa and of the indigenous peoples of Tixán is ultimately a story of resiliency and adaptation within a context of profound inequality and marginalisation. Despite the book's sombre ending, Cervone's clear-eyed account of the organisation's evolution suggests that the spaces won in the 1990s will remain in the collective imaginary and be remade anew in future struggles and debates.