Indigenous women continue to be imagined as passive subjects at the margins of political decision-making, but they are in fact dynamic actors who shape state sovereignty and domestic and international politics. Manuela Lavinas Picq uses the case of Kichwa women successfully advocating for gender parity in the administration of Indigenous justice in Ecuador to show how Indigenous women can influence world politics.

“This book is well written and provides readers with more than just a case study in Indigenous politics. Picq's contribution to the literature offers scholars the opportunity to draw from her argument and make other comparisons to illustrate how local movements can, and do, reshape the role and structure of the state.”—Choice

“Vernacular Sovereignties presents an important corrective to the writing-out of Indigenous women from the history of the Western state; it offers the compelling argument that Indigenous women have always engaged with the modern state and, in so doing, defined it.”—Andrew Canessa, author of Intimate Indigeneities: Race, Sex, and History in the Small Spaces of Andean Life
 
“In this thoughtful and compelling book, Picq effectively restores Indigenous women to their rightful place in academic and political discourse, thus making a groundbreaking contribution to the fields of gender and Native studies.”—Marc Becker, author of Pachakutik: Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador
 

“This research developed by Picq reveals, not only invisible struggles, but also the abundant similarities in the national and international proposals and strategies employed by Indigenous women for their vernacular sovereignty within their respective nation states. Picq's work has assumed the need to overcome Western society's historical misunderstanding of Indigenous political traditions and to seek ways for dignified coexistence between these societies.”—Luis Martin Valdiviezo Arista, Revista