Carlos de la Torre is Director of the doctoral program in and Chair of Political Studies at FLACSO (La Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales) in Quito, Ecuador. He is the author of Populist Seduction in Latin America: The Ecuadorian Experience and several books in Spanish, including Afroquitenos: Ciudadania y Racismo.
Steve Striffler is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arkansas. He is the author of In the Shadows of State and Capital: the United Fruit Company, Popular Struggle, and Agrarian Restructuring in Ecuador, 1900-1995 and a coeditor of Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas, both also published by Duke University Press.