CONAIE, since its creation in the beginning of the 80s has had to contrast the existing forms of organisations, fundamentally the union type with hierarchical and vertical representation, with a clear identification of the indigenous perspective as product of a prolonged debate. The type of organisation seen in unions, left-wing parties and social movements, under criterion of functionality, contributed to forming a kind of "organisation type", and CONAIE based its organisational structure on this and at the same time it defined itself as being a confederation of nationalities which means that it recognised the existence of a diversity of identities that have to coexist in the new organisation.

But CONAIE also constituted itself from two organisations, which had different roots although convergent: ECUARUNARI in the Ecuadorian mountains, and CONFENAIE in the Amazon. In fact, the indigenous peoples organised in ECUARUNARI belonged to organisations of the first grade that had some connections with the system on the hacienda. The struggle over land, a central element in their view of the world was above all an economic type of demand that the union types of organisation in the 70s were based on.

However, the Ecuadorian Amazonian organisations did not go through this process of valuing the land. In fact, the Ecuadorian elite has considered the Amazon, as being no-one’s land; one of the most important representatives of the elite, the ex-president of the republic Galo Plaza Lasso, stated that ‘’the Ecuadorian Orient is a myth’’. However, the system of the Hacienda has not achieved to penetrate the Amazon and to incorporate new power-relations on this territory.

The Ecuadorian Amazon went through a process of increasing its value with the discovery of oil and its exploitation in the beginning of the 70s. The Amazonian nationalities view their surrounding as a territory that has to be under their control, being more than just economic property. Their basic notion is exactly the notion of territory, a cultural concept fundamental for defining a nation.

However, the encounter of these two historical processes implicates a series of ruptures and transformations; of these ruptures might come off two of the most important political categories which have been generated in contemporary Ecuador, those of pluri-nationality and interculturality. The demand for pluri-nationality requires in fact a political reform of the state and of its system of political representation and procedural forms of democracy.

The acknowledgement of the necessity of interculturality implicates a transformation of societies according to the relativity of the contents of civilisation and the acceptance of differences.

But the process of organisational transformation within CONAIE has to resolve a conflict that has existed since its constitution. If CONAIE is indeed an organisation of nationalities and indigenous peoples then its levels of representation have to articulate the original conception of nationalities and peoples. A transformation is needed from a union kind of organisation with a geographic basis based on the territorial division of the state towards a new type of political organisation for which the fundamental criterion is exactly that of nationality. To take on this responsibility it is in the first place necessary to define how nationality is being expressed and to begin a process of recovering traditional memory, meaning, to recover the original forms by which the different peoples and nations used to resolve their cultural differences.

To be able to organise CONAIE from these concepts of nationality and people, a process of reconstructing these nationalities and peoples is necessary. This process began in the early 90s and pushes against current organisative structures and against the way of understanding and taking on the political representation within CONAIE. This had as result that the recently held congress of CONAIE (October 2001) was designated the first congress of the indigenous nationalities and peoples of Ecuador. It concerned a process unprecedented and of which the horizon is being drawn, as the actors become aware of their priorities and of which the agenda has still to be set. Perhaps it became evident by the series of conflicts that arose by the duplication in functions and delegations of peoples and nationalities to the representations in provincial indigenous organisations.

Besides the procedural conflicts, more profound conflicts became evident which still have not been resolved. When constituting organisations with nationality as criteria, what is then the future of provincial organisations? How to take on a process of notification, of organisation and mobilisation which has been realised since the organisations of third grade towards a completely new kind of organisation? How to connect those stages of the peoples and nations who are very advanced in their process of historical and political reconstruction with those who are still at the beginning of this process? How to prevent the over-representation of peoples and nations? How to constitute a council of nationalities and peoples that has real influence in the council of the government of CONAIE?

One of the challenges of the indigenous movement is to open up space for discussions and debates about the new forms of representations, about the meaning of this new type of political organisation for the indigenous peoples and for the Ecuadorian society as a whole.