Buen vivir

Buen vivir (living well) is an expression present in several pre-Columbian indigenous communities. It is called suma qamana among the Aymara, nande reko among the Guarani, sumak kawsay among the Kichwa… Buen vivir refers to “the art of living well and harmoniously in a community“¹Monica Chuji, Grimaldo Rengifo and Eduardo Gudynas (2022). “Buen vivir,” in Kothari et al. Plurivers. A Dictionary of Post-Development, Les Bruyères, Wildproject, pp. 190 – 194, p. 191.. This art has both “social and ecological dimensions“²(Ibid.).

In a global way, the posture of Buen vivir disaffiliates itself from the supremacy attributed to the concepts of progress and history, represented as an integrative totality of the destiny of human societies. It also questions the idea of developmentalism and “its obsession with economic growth, consumerism and the commodification of nature“³(Ibid.). Finally, buen vivir recognizes an intrinsic value to nonhumans.

The discourse of buen vivir has a double function of criticism of the European modernity and proposal of cultural, social and political reconstruction. It includes as much the idea of interdependence between society and its environment as that of the universal as a plural reality. Therefore, it imposes itself in fundamental rupture with modern Western ideologies, mainly those of society-nature dualism and Eurocentric universalism⁴Julien Vanhulst and Adrian Beling (2013). “Buen vivir and sustainable development : rupture or continuity?”, Presses de Sciences Po (Ecology and Politics), 1, n. 46, pp. 41 – 54, p. 47..

Notes

• 1
  Monica Chuji, Grimaldo Rengifo and Eduardo Gudynas (2022). “Buen vivir,” in Kothari et al. Plurivers. A Dictionary of Post-Development, Les Bruyères, Wildproject, pp. 190 – 194, p. 191.
• 2
  (Ibid.)
• 3
  (Ibid.)
• 4
  Julien Vanhulst and Adrian Beling (2013). “Buen vivir and sustainable development : rupture or continuity?”, Presses de Sciences Po (Ecology and Politics), 1, n. 46, pp. 41 – 54, p. 47.