Following Ecuador's agrarian reforms of the mid-20th century, the indigenous Kichwa people of the highlands found it necessary to invent post-agrarian livelihoods. Individuals have often found their livelihood aspirations frustrated as they confront political economic structures that exclude them from full participation in national economy and society. At the same time, community institutions and trade associations have sought to redirect individual interests toward the collective good of their members by drawing on diverse sources of ancestral practice, global governance, and state bureaucracy in order to manage environmental resources, build infrastructure, pursue economic development, and engender culturally meaningful community revitalization. This dissertation explores the emergence of Kichwa vernacular development through a broad-ranging exploration of the structural conditions that Kichwa people have faced since the mid-20th century, their critiques of those conditions, and their efforts to build institutions to support their pursuit of better livelihoods. In particular, it explores the examples of a community-based tourism organization in rural Cotopaxi Province, and a group of savings and credit cooperatives based in the provincial capital of Latacunga. Marshalling insights drawn from a genre of folkloric painting, the author concludes that Kichwa institution building represents a generations-long effort to decolonize Ecuadorian society.