Philipp Altmann

TL;DR: The concept of Good Life (Sumak Kawsay or Buen Vivir) has been used by the Ecuadorian indigenous movement as a conceptual weapon in order to defend the territories of indigenous nationalities as the movement itself defines them as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: The concept of Good Life as discussed by the authors proposes a life in harmony with nature and is seen as an alternative to modernizing development in the context of the Ecuadorian Constitution and the Sumak Kawsay movement.

Abstract: The concept of sumak kawsay, buen vivir or “good life”—in Bolivia, suma qamana, or vivir bien—has been widely diffused on an international level since the Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly in 2007–2008 and the Bolivian one in 2006–2009. Good life has been understood as an alternative to capitalist modernizing development that is based on the indigenous ideal of harmony between individual, society, and nature. Nevertheless, in the usage of the indigenous movement, which initiated the diffusion of this concept, good life is a local and territorial conception of a lifestyle. While this notion of locality is largely ignored or invisibilized by the Ecuadorian government and by nonindigenous intellectuals, and to some degree even by national indigenous organizations, local indigenous organizations integrated good life into their discourse of territorial autonomy in a pluralist state. Good life allows for local decolonialization, a concrete and local fight against the structures of “the coloniality of power” framed within a discursive panorama that includes concepts of plurality and autonomy. This text analyzes sumak kawsay as a key concept of local decolonialization, emphasizing its relation to similar concepts and the differences in its usage by different actors. Resumen El concepto de sumak kawsay, o buen vivir —igual que su version boliviana suma qamana— ha experimentado desde la Constituyente ecuatoriana en 2007–2008 y la boliviana en 2006–2009 una amplia difusion a nivel internacional. El buen vivir ha sido entendido como una alternativa al desarrollo modernizante capitalista que se basa en el ideal indigena de una harmonia entre individuo, sociedad y naturaleza. No obstante, en el uso del movimiento indigena —actor que inicio la difusion de este concepto— el buen vivir es una concepcion local y territorial de un estilo de vida. Mientras que en el uso por el gobierno ecuatoriano y por intelectuales no-indigenas —y en algun grado hasta en las organizaciones indigenas nacionales—, esta nocion de localidad es ignorada o invisibilizada, las organizaciones indigenas locales integraron al buen vivir en su discurso de autonomia territorial en un Estado pluralista. El buen vivir permite una apertura en la perspectiva para una decolonializacion local, una lucha concreta y localizada contra las estructuras de la colonialidad del poder enmarcada en un panorama discursivo que incluye conceptos de pluralidad y autonomia. Esta presentacion va a analizar al sumak kawsay como concepto clave de una decolonializacion local, poniendo enfasis en su relacion con conceptos afines y en las diferencias de su uso por los diferentes actores discursivos.

TL;DR: In this article, Kawsay and Suma Qamana compare different interpretations of the Buen Vivir concept in the definicion of movimiento indigena and the Gobierno ecuatoriano.