What is Sumak Kawsay? A Qualitative Study in the Ecuadorian Amazon

2021 ◽  
pp. 0094582X2110049
Author(s):  
Carmen Amelia Coral-Guerrero ◽  
Fernando García-Quero ◽  
Jorge Guardiola
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Buen Vivir ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Ancestral Knowledge ◽  
Ecuadorian Amazon ◽  
Sumak Kawsay ◽  
Local Discourses

A qualitative study of the main characteristics of sumak kawsay ( buen vivir, living well/good life) in the Ecuadorian Amazon shows that it has four constitutive elements of which a multitude of interpretations coexist: an indigenous and nature-focused worldview, community, an economy based on solidarity, and ancestral knowledge. Understandings of sumak kawsay are rooted in the practices and beliefs of the communities interviewed rather than in theoretical constructions of idyllic community forms, and in this connection differences can be observed between the academic “indigenist” view of it and local discourses. Una aproximación cualitativa a las características principales del sumak kawsay ( buen vivir, living well/good life) en la Amazonía ecuatoriana muestran la existencia de cuatro elementos constitutivos del sumak kawsay en los que colindan multitud de interpretaciones: cosmovisión indígena y naturaleza, comunidad, economía solidaria, y conocimiento ancestral. Las comprensiones del sumak kawsay enraízan con prácticas y creencias de las personas y no con construcciones teóricas de formas comunitarias idílicas, y al respecto, apreciamos diferencias entre la visión académica “indigenista” del sumak kawsay y los discursos locales.

scholarly journals What is a “Good Life”: Protocol for a qualitative study to explore the viewpoint of older persons

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0261741
Author(s):  
Hervé Michel ◽  
Hélène Prévôt-Huille ◽  
Raphaël Koster ◽  
Fiona Ecarnot ◽  
Zoé Grange ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Older Persons ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
General Definition ◽  
Successful Ageing ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Wide Range

Introduction Over the last fifteen years, Living Labs have been on the rise in Europe to bridge the gap between service providers, and the needs of end-users, and to speed up innovation, particularly in the field of healthcare and ageing. Ageing tends to be considered by institutions as a set of risks to be managed for older persons, illustrated in particular via the concepts of “ageing well” or “successful ageing”. In this context, this project aims to define the meaning and the conditions for a good life from the point of view of older persons themselves, thereby improving institutions’ recognition and support of older persons’ ways of living well, rather than imposing a general definition of “successful ageing” based on functional capacity. Methods and analysis This qualitative study is designed as an action research underpinned by a Living-Lab approach to co-creation. The aims are to: define the conditions for a good life as accurately as possible with older persons (Step 1); share these findings with different healthcare and service providers to adjust existing services or create new ones (Step 2); and disseminate them more broadly within the regions under study and across the scientific community (Step 3). During Step 1, the features of a “good life” will be analysed in a socio-anthropological study based on semi-directed interviews and observations made in the homes of 70 elderly people living in a wide range of accommodation types and regions. In accordance with French legislation, and as confirmed by our formal Ethics Committee, this study does not require approval. The dissemination stage is integrated into the design of this action research, and notably will provide for the appropriation of research findings by the partners of this study, by setting up creativity sessions (Step 2) and by sharing the general findings through panel discussions bringing together regional and national stakeholders (Step 3).

scholarly journals Semillas y caminos para la educación latinoamericana en tiempos de incertidumbre

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Carlos Crespo Burgos
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Buen Vivir ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Good Living ◽  
Sumak Kawsay ◽  
America Latina ◽  
Educational Movements

En América Latina vivimos un quiebre en las tendencias de los procesos políticos y sociales de cambio que venían desenvolviéndose en la primera década y media del presente siglo. En este contexto de incertidumbre, las sociedades se encuentran en la encrucijada ante las vías posibles que se abren a la educación: ¿igualdad, inclusión o competitividad para el mercado? Este artículo pasa revista por algunas importantes resignifi caciones planteadas a la educación en las últimas décadas por diversos movimientos sociales y educativos en América Latina, en el escenario de transformaciones sociales y políticas en que algunos Estados contribuyeron a la revitalización de la educación pública como un derecho humano. Nuevas generaciones exigen la educación como derecho y no quieren más educación como lucro. Pueblos indígenas proponen otros sentidos de la educación dentro del paradigma del Buen Vivir (Sumak Kawsay) o Vivir Bien (Suma Qamaña), buscan posicionar un nuevo signifi cado de la vida, en el horizonte de una nueva espiritualidad y convivencia. Estas alternativas ofrecen señales de posibles caminos frente al oscurecimiento humano que presenciamos actualmente.Palabras clave: Sentidos de la educación. Alternativas al desarrollo. Pertinencia cultural. Sementes e estradas para a educação latino-americana em tempos de incertezaRESUMONa América Latina vivemos uma ruptura nas tendências dos processos políticos e sociais de mudança que se desdobraram na primeira década e meia deste século. Nesse contexto de incerteza, as sociedades estão na encruzilhada diante de possíveis caminhos abertos à educação: igualdade, inclusão ou competitividade para o mercado? Este artigo analisa algumas ressignificações importantes da educação nas últimas décadas por diversos movimentos sociais e educacionais da América Latina, no cenário de transformações sociais e políticas em que alguns Estados contribuíram para a revitalização da educação pública como direito humano. As novas gerações exigem educação como um direito e não querem mais educação como lucro. Os povos indígenas propõem outras formas de educação dentro do paradigma do bem viver (Sumak Kawsay) ou segundo Living Well (Suma Qamaña) buscar um novo sentido da vida, no horizonte de uma nova espiritualidade e convívio. Essas alternativas oferecem sinais de possíveis caminhos contrários ao obscurecimento humano que estamos testemunhando atualmente.Palavras-chave: Sentidos da educação. Alternativas ao desenvolvimento. Relevância cultural. Seeds and roads for Latin American education in times of uncertaintyABSTRACTIn Latin America we have lived a break in the trends of the political and social processes of change that had been unfolding in the fi rst decade and a half of this century. In this context of uncertainty, societies are at the crossroads before the possible paths open to education: equality, inclusion or competitiveness for the market? This article reviews some important resignifi cations of education in recent decades by various social and educational movements in Latin America, in the scenario of social and political transformations where some States contributed to the revitalization of public education as a human right. New generations demand education as a right, they do not want more education as a profi t. Indigenous peoples propose other meanings of education within the paradigm of Good Living (Sumak Kawsay) or Living Well (Suma Qamaña), seeking to position a new meaning of life, on the horizon of a new spirituality and coexistence. These alternatives off er signs of possible paths against the human obscuration that we are witnessing today.Keywords: Senses of education. Alternatives to development. Cultural relevance.

scholarly journals Education for a good life: tracing how Sumak Kawsay and Sufficiency Economy became ideals for living well

10.33177/6.4 ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 69-90
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Good Living ◽  
Good For ◽  
Sumak Kawsay

Both Sumak Kawsay (SK) in Ecuador and Sufficiency Economy (SE) in Thailand are stories of virtue, identity and progress that bring about an ideal citizen and lifestyle claimed to be good for all, but which are in fact problematic and dangerous for many. These notions arose in political and educational discourses as a promise to “rescue” “indigenous” values; to make possible ways of good-living better suited for each of these countries than “Western” notions of well-being. It is problematic that in trying to make the idea of progress “indigenous” these proposals (re)inscribe particular historically transmitted ideas of who an ideal citizen is, and a lifestyle which makes deviant “kinds” of people who have to be “cured” through education. This paper will argue that SK and SE in education are ways of organizing the behavior of people through stories of virtue. It will also argue that these stories shape and are shaped by their intersection with the traveling and translation of ideas of progress. The paper will look into particular historical events to analyze what categories and notions of progress make SK and SE possible.

scholarly journals Maria’s Paradox: Oil Extraction and the Misery of Missing Development Alternatives in the Ecuadorian Amazon

2019 ◽  
pp. 203-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murat Arsel ◽  
Lorenzo Pellegrini ◽  
Carlos F. Mena
Keyword(s):  
Oil Extraction ◽  
Buen Vivir ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Peasant Communities ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Ecuadorian Amazon ◽  
Oil Sector ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Development Alternatives ◽  
The Impact

Why do some residents of the Ecuadorian Amazon support the expansion of oil extraction in their communities even when they believe that the impact of extractive industries on their communities and families has been negative, environmentally as well as economically? Building on nearly a decade of participatory research in the region, this chapter contextualizes this paradoxical choice within Ecuador’s encounter with oil extraction, which has not only failed to deliver the anticipated economic miracle but also resulted in a variety of immiserizing effects, be they economic, cultural, or ecological. Caught between the state whose functions are governed by an ‘extractive imperative’ and the oil sector whose presence is overwhelming, indigenous and peasant communities have not scored meaningful gains either by protesting against these dominant actors or by engaging with the much vaunted but ultimately ineffective concept of buen vivir (living well). The chapter argues that immiserization in this context is best understood as the absence of meaningful pathways to socio-economic development which force the eponymous Maria to choose intensified extraction despite the sector’s pervasive negative impacts on her family and community.

scholarly journals BUEN VIVIR, DESARROLLO Y DEPREDACIÓN NEOLIBERAL EN EL SIGLO XXI

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Morna Macleod
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Open Pit ◽  
Open Pit Mining ◽  
Buen Vivir ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Western Development ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sumak Kawsay ◽  
America Latina

En la última década han florecido nociones sobre sumak kawsay y suma qamaña ‘buen vivir’ en Ecuador y Bolivia, respectivamente, al calor de los procesos participativos e innovadoras de las nuevas constituciones políticas. Estas se unen con teorizaciones hechas en otras partes de América Latina, como son el lekil kuxlejal en Chiapas, y el incipiente tb’anil qanq’ib’il entre los maya-mames de Guatemala. Simultáneamente, se señala el auge de la industria extractivista, con alarmantes niveles de depredación. El artículo identifica algunos cuestionamientos del desarrollo occidental y explora las diversas nociones del buen vivir, para luego resaltar la manera en que una mina de oro a cielo abierto, en Guatemala, está destruyendo el ambiente, el tejido social, familiar y comunitario, y muchos elementos locales del buen vivir en San Miguel Ixtahuacán. Recoge las percepciones de mujeres maya-mames que resisten la mina. BUEN VIVIR, DEVELOPMENT AND NEOLIBERAL PILLAGE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY The notions of sumak kawsay and suma qamaña (living well/‘buen vivir’) have flourished in the last decade in Ecuador and Bolivia, respectively, in the heat of the participatory and innovative processes brought about by the new political constitutions. These notions have joined processes of theorizing from other Latin America regions, like lekil kuxlejal in Chiapas, and incipient tb’anil qanq’ib’il among the Maya-Mam people from Guatemala. Simultaneously alarming levels of pillage have accompanied the boom of the extraction industry. This article identifies some critiques of Western development and explores different notions of living well/buen vivir to then highlight how open pit mining for gold in Guatemala is destroying the environment, the social fabric, families and communities, as well as many local elements regarding buen vivir in San Miguel Ixtahuacan. It collects perceptions from Maya-Mam women who are resisting the mine.

scholarly journals Ecuador’s experiment in living well: Sumak kawsay, Spinoza and the inadequacy of ideas

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (10) ◽  
pp. 2241-2260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Gerlach
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Continental Drift ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Buen Vivir ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Sumak Kawsay ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
Modes Of Governance ◽  
Policy Mechanisms

In April 2017, Ecuador halted the continental drift to the conservative right in Latin America by electing leftist Lenín Moreno to the Presidency. Attention has turned, therefore, to the legacy of outgoing President Rafael Correa’s decade in power. To that end, this paper examines one of Correa’s signature programmes, ‘Buen Vivir’ (Living Well), a strategic plan for development underscored by the indigenous Kichwa cosmology of ‘sumak kawsay’. Sumak kawsay is a notion that has been co-opted into policy mechanisms in an attempt to both challenge neoliberal modes of governance, and to disrupt the ontological bifurcation of nature and society. Given the emphasis placed on ecological sensibility in sumak kawsay and Buen Vivir, critics have been quick to highlight the contradictory relations between Ecuador’s mode of environmental governance and its extractivist agenda. Such critiques are as staid as they are well rehearsed. Acknowledging the precarious composition of sumak kawsay, the paper questions the extent to which the ethos of experimentalism in politics can be sustained, eliding stymied technocratic forms of the political. It turns, therefore, to Baruch Spinoza’s treatise on adequate and inadequate ideas. In so doing, the paper examines how one can critique an idea without perpetuating a moral economy in judgment. Consequently, the paper considers the way in which Spinoza’s thought can be charged to recuperate imperilled political ideas.

“Sumak kawsay Is Harmful for All of Us”: Oil Roads and Well-being among the Waorani in Ecuadorian Amazonia

2021 ◽  
pp. 0094582X2110049
Author(s):  
Andrea Bravo Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Developmental Model ◽  
Buen Vivir ◽  
La Paz ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Sumak Kawsay ◽  
The Ideal

Exploration of the notion of waponi kewemonipa (living well) among Waorani people living near oil camps suggests that the extractivist developmental model delivered by the Ecuadorian government in the name of buen vivir (living well) is harmful to their experience of well-being. For Waorani living well is related to peace, collective happiness, and certain ecological experiences. The forest, a socio-biological ecological milieu, is the ideal locus of the Waorani conception of living well, but environmental changes related to oil camps and roads challenge their health and vitality. La exploración de la noción de waponi kewemonipa (o buen vivir) entre los waorani que viven cerca de los campamentos petroleros sugiere que el modelo de desarrollo extractivista fomentado por el gobierno ecuatoriano en nombre del “buen vivir” es perjudicial para la experiencia indígena del bienestar. Para los Waorani, vivir bien se relaciona con la paz, la felicidad colectiva y ciertas experiencias de índole ecológico. El bosque, un ambiente socio-biológico, es el locus ideal de la concepción waorani del buen vivir, pero los cambios ecológicos relacionados con los campos petroleros y las carreteras dificulta la experiencia de su salud y vitalidad.

Living Well and Health Practices among Aymara People in Northern Chile

2021 ◽  
pp. 0094582X2110049
Author(s):  
Alejandra Carreño-Calderón
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Population ◽  
Indigenous Health ◽  
Health Programs ◽  
Northern Chile ◽  
Medical Field ◽  
Buen Vivir ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Intercultural Health ◽  
Health Model

The current Chilean health model seeks to promote health equity among indigenous peoples by means of state intercultural health programs. As implemented regionally, these have been widely criticized as depoliticizing mechanisms meant to dominate the indigenous population. Study of the experiences of several indigenous health agents and associations fostered by these programs reveals that the strategic use of the concept of living well by indigenous peoples raises questions about the issues that are to be included in or excluded from the intercultural medical field. El actual modelo de salud chileno busca promover el acceso equitativo a la salud entre los pueblos indígenas a través de programas estatales de salud intercultural. Tal y como se aplican a nivel regional, estos han sido ampliamente criticados como mecanismos de despolitización diseñados para dominar a la población indígena. El estudio de las experiencias de varios agentes y asociaciones de salud indígenas impulsados por estos programas revela que el uso estratégico del concepto del buen vivir por parte de los pueblos indígenas plantea interrogantes sobre qué asuntos deben o no incluirse en el campo médico intercultural.

Teach the Children Well

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 734-760
Author(s):  
Michelle Mason
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Living Well ◽  
Ethical Virtue ◽  
Good For

What connection is there between living well, in the sense of living a life of ethical virtue, and faring well, in the sense of living a life good for the agent whose life it is? Defenses of a connection between exercising the virtues and living a good life often display two commitments: first, to addressing their answer to the person whose life is in question and, second, to showing that virtue is what I call a reliability conferring property. I challenge both commitments. I propose we take up the question from the dialogical point of view implicit in contexts where one person (an “ethical trustee”) is charged with the care of the character of another (an “ethical trustor”) and argue that virtue is what I call a status conferring property. Ethical trustees benefit their trustors by inculcating the virtues because in doing so they bestow on them a status that is necessary for a good life.

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