 The Invisibility of the Coastal Indigenous Groups in Colonial and Republican Policies 
The article is about the invisibility of the Indigenous groups of the southern coast of Ecuador in colonial and republican policies. Invisibility manifests itself in different ways by: the absence of these groups in the colonial policies of assimilation, acculturation and exploitation; the weak presence of the religious missions on the southern coast; the absence of coastal groups in the indigenist policies of the 1930s and ‘40s and their association with the acculturation and assimilation in the mestizo society. Starting from the end of the sixties, a series of phenomena demonstrated the limits of the strategy of invisibility as a means of resistance and also the need for structuring a new dis course in order to protect communal lands. These phenomena are: the emergence of legal conflicts relating to the statute of the communal lands, their fragmentation and sale to private actors and the development of tourism activities.