Rural territories and land reform: the case of indigenous cooperatives of the Ecuadorian sierra

This article analyses major changes that have taken place in a territory where land reform was carried out in the 1960s, facilitating access to land by indigenous peasants and the start of a process of "territorialisation" of an important rural space located in Canton Cayambe, in the Province of Pichincha in highland Ecuador. Above all, it is important to highlight the peasant strategy of occupation of hacienda lands and their transformation into a territory of peasant family farmers oriented to milk production and articulated with local agroindustrial firms. This process has brought a greater complexity to the territory that is now subject to an external economic dynamic that has brought significant changes in the economic, social, and cultural strategies of the indigenous families