I took this picture while conducting field work for my PhD thesis in the province of Chimborazo, Ecuador. The Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador, or Tayta Chimborazo in Kichwa, is the tallest mountain in the country. To Indigenous communities the mountain represents a living bieng with whom the interact and have a reciprocal relationship. In the foreground is the Balbanera Catholic Church, the first church built in Ecuador in in 1524. The Catholic church represents power and religion within Indigenous communities. The contrast between nature and religion represents what I explore in my PhD thesis as I seek to understand Western ideas of environmental conservation and power and how these ideas interact with Indigenous worldviews about nature and life.
