From below, on the left & with the earth: Attuning to the relational in learners’ voices through a pedagogy of Buen Vivir

Abstract

ABSTRACT The epistemologies of the South (Santos, 2015) offer key conceptual tools for fostering ethical relations among human beings and the natural world. In our moment of socioecological crisis, they constitute a critical yet undertheorized dimension of learners’ voices and agency. This paper discusses a collaborative project in Maya-Achí territory in Guatemala aimed at designing and studying a learning environment organized around Buen Vivir, an Indigenous and collective conceptualization of wellbeing from Abya Yala (Latin America). Our analysis focuses on three interconnected levels at which we witnessed participants forming and deepening subject-subject relations: with the land, with other participants, and with the past and future. We discuss two design principles – conviviality and a shared axiological framework – which supported the development of subject-subject relations. We conclude with reflections on the importance of relationality as a core quality of learners’ voices for fostering more life-enhancing ways of living together on the earth.