Sumak Kawsay Research Articles

Dilemmas of Difference: Indigenous Women and the Limits of Postcolonial Development Policy by Sarah A. Radcliffe

Reviewed by: Dilemmas of Difference: Indigenous Women and the Limits of Postcolonial Development Policy by Sarah A. Radcliffe Emily Billo Dilemmas of Difference: Indigenous Women and the Limits of Postcolonial Development Policy. Sarah A. Radcliffe. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2015. xii & 372 pp. Maps, tables, figures, photos, notes, glossary, bibliography, index. $99.95 cloth (ISBN 978-0-8223-5978-4), $27.95 paper (ISBN 978-0-8223-6010-0), and $27.95 e-book (978-0-8223-7502-9). [End Page 211] In this dynamic book, Sarah Radcliffe uses a postcolonial intersectional analysis to unpack and critique Ecuador’s development policy and practice. This macro-scale approach demonstrates the way in which social categories of difference in development are rooted in the power-laden colonial gaze of dominant groups, producing development policies that have never been for indigenous women. Radcliffe draws on seven years of research with two indigenous groups in Ecuador, Kichwa communities in Chimborazo province in the Andean highlands, and Tsáchila communities in the Pacific lowlands, in the province of Santo Domingo. Even as indigenous women are consistently marginalized by development policy, they resist its interventions to produce situated knowledges that “create an alternative vision of postcolonial social difference” (p. 30). The book is organized in seven chapters plus an introduction. In the introduction, Radciffe outlines her argument and theoretical approach. Chapters 1 and 2 help the reader understand how social categories of development, rooted in colonial understandings of difference, produce indigenous women as inferior. In particular, Chapter 2 mobilizes Cindi Katz’s concept of counter-topographies (“On the Grounds of Globalization,” Signs, 2001) to trace lines of power that make structural processes of discrimination and dispossession visible across both Kichwa and Tsáchila groups. The remaining chapters explore different approaches to development policy, and the ways in which indigenous women are consistently excluded from these policy processes. These trends include: participatory development, “indigenous women in development” policy, sexual and reproductive health, citizenship and rights, and finally post-neoliberal development policy rooted in a rights-based agenda of sumak kawsay. Following chapters 2 and 4, Radcliffe includes “interludes” in which indigenous women speak in their own voices of their struggles, organizing, and desire for change. These interludes also serve as organizational dividers, between historical constructions of colonial categories in development policy in chapters 1 and 2, neoliberal development policy in chapters 3 and 4, and, in the last three chapters, indigenous women critiquing and creating the space for their own voices to be heard, producing situated knowledges based on their own embodied experiences. As Radcliffe suggests, the book can be read chronologically, or each chapter can be explored individually. Radcliffe’s methodology, while not outlined in tremendous detail, does point to extensive outreach before beginning fieldwork, as well as careful collaborative efforts during fieldwork. Before beginning her field-based research, Radcliffe met with differently positioned women in Ecuador who held leadership positions as “ethnic movement leaders, elected women’s representatives, NGO workers, and civil servants,” some of whom were indigenous (p. 28). Her goal was to establish key themes that indigenous women were interested in, and to which her project could contribute. These conversations, continued via email, produced her research questions. Radcliffe writes that she engaged in a “decolonial approach” that attempted to make the invisible visible, while also attending to the knowledge produced by the invisible (p. 28). Indeed, she writes on the last page of the book, “Indigenous women’s insights suggest that epistemological doubt, analytical enquiry, and critique are not uniquely a privilege of a subject centered in the West” (p. 290). Between 2009–2011, Radcliffe returned to Ecuador to visit Kichwa and Tsáchila communities. She writes, “Questions about access and mutually agreed qualitative methods [End Page 212] [with the women in each province] were negotiated through sustained interactions with provincial federation and indigenous group leaders” (p. 29). In the remainder of this review, I examine Radcliffe’s theoretical approach, and consider its implications for geographers. I argue that the critique Radcliffe builds in this book offers a provocative, essential analysis of development policy, and is usefully applied to other political and social contexts. Moreover, her analysis of development policy in...

Can Rights of Nature Make Development More Sustainable? Why Some Ecuadorian lawsuits Succeed and Others Fail

Summary In 2008, Ecuador became the world’s first country to include rights of Nature (RoN) in its constitution. The constitution presents RoN as a tool for building a new form of sustainable development based on the Andean Indigenous concept sumak kawsay ( buen vivir in Spanish), which is rooted in the idea of living in harmony with Nature. While much is written on the ethical arguments regarding RoN (and buen vivir), few studies analyze how RoN might be implemented. We fill this gap by explaining why some efforts to apply Ecuador’s RoN laws succeeded while others failed. We compare 13 RoN lawsuits using an original framework for analyzing the pathways and strategies RoN advocates (and their opponents) use to build (and counter) momentum behind judicial processes meant to buttress the enforcement of contested RoN norms. The case descriptions and analysis draw on primary documents and in-depth interviews conducted during 2014–15. Through process tracing, we identified key structural conditions and strategic decisions shaping the outcomes in each case. Our findings as of 2016 reveal unexpected pathways of influence involving a symbiotic process among civil society, state agencies, and the courts. Surprisingly, civil society pressure was the least successful pathway, as activists lost high-profile lawsuits. Nevertheless, they facilitated judicial momentum by working on less-politicized local cases and training lower-level judges. Instrumental use of RoN laws by the state produced unintended consequences, including establishing precedent and educating judges. Knowledgable judges are unilaterally applying RoN in their sentencing, even when neither claimants nor defendants allege RoN violations. Ecuador’s cases demonstrate how “weak” RoN laws can strengthen, providing important insight into the global contestation over sustainable development and the strategies and legal tools being used to advance a post-neoliberal development agenda rooted in harmony with nature.

Promoción del Método de Purificación de Agua para Uso Doméstico, en la Comunidad de La Tola del GADIP de Cayambe

La creciente demanda de agua potable para el consumo humano en el Ecuador hace necesario contar con mecanismos de abastecimiento y distribución por parte de los gobiernos seccionales en el país. Desde 1999 en varios países de América Latina, al igual que en África y Asia, se lanzaron iniciativas y actividades locales de aplicación de métodos, entre ellos el método SODIS (Solar DISinfection). El presente proyecto busca mejorar la calidad de vida de la comunidad La Tola perteneciente al Gobierno Autónomo Descentralizado Intercultural y Plurinacional, GADIP, de Cayambe, al tratar el agua para consumo y cumplir el mandato del Artículo 14 de la Constitución de la República sobre “el derecho de la población a vivir en un ambiente sano y ecológicamente equilibrado, que garantice la sostenibilidad y el buen vivir, Sumak Kawsay”. Para tal efecto, apoyados por técnicos de la Asociación de Municipalidades Ecuatorianas, AME, se definió la necesidad de la Comunidad y la posibilidad de implementación del proyecto, para lo que se consolidó el Convenio UTE-GADIP de Cayambe como base legal para incursionar y dar solución al problema puntual de la comunidad con respecto al uso del agua y las prácticas de higiene.

Good Life As a Social Movement Proposal for Natural Resource Use: The Indigenous Movement in Ecuador

The Ecuadorian indigenous movement has developed the concept of Good Life (Sumak Kawsay or Buen Vivir) as a conceptual weapon in order to defend the territories of indigenous nationalities as the movement itself defines them. Starting in 2002, petroleum exploitation in indigenous areas in the Amazon has been denounced as an attack against the principles of the traditional concept of Good Life. The introduction of the concept of Good Life allowed the local as well as the national indigenous organizations to define their vision of the country and society, while allowing easier coalitions with a growing Ecological Left. Good Life is not only a new content in the indigenous discourse, but also an instrument for social movement mobilization and coalition building. This text aims to offer a clearer idea of what the indigenous movement in Ecuador understands as Good Life, the development of the concept, the different contents and relations it has, and its strategic use in Ecuadorian politics.

Ayahuasca and Sumak Kawsay: Challenges to the Implementation of the Principle of “Buen Vivir,” Religious Freedom, and Cultural Heritage Protection

AbstractThe current environmental crisis can be approached, through many perspectives, as a civilizational crisis. Alternatives of human transcendence are identified in the Inca civilization to compensate for the malaise that characterizes the actual crisis. There is a multicultural dimension to the manifestations of Hoasca (or Ayahuasca) occurring in Amazonian countries. As employed by the Beneficent Spiritist Center União do Vegetal (UDV) in a religious context, it can contribute to the reconstruction of buen vivir (or in Quechua, sumak kawsay, meaning complete wellness), which served as the principle of the civilizations that preceded the colonization of the Americas by Europeans. Today, the State openly confronts the manifestation of the constitutional principles of buen vivir, religious freedom, and the protection of this cultural heritage. Here, the implications of the civilizational crisis and ways of overcoming it are approached from the standpoint of deep ecology, but the implications also reflect the doctrinal vision of the UDV to which the authors are affiliated.

O que é a vida segundo as cortes constitucionais do novo constitucionalismo latino-americano?

The paper approaches the right to life at new Latin-American constitutionalism. It highlights the different approaches among the caselaw of Constitutional Courts of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia. The Brazilian and Colombian Courts emphasize the human dignity as a right, while Ecuadorian and Bolivian choose one original concept: the “good life”, called “bien viver” in Spanish or “sumak kawsay” in indigenous dialect.

Re-thinking oil: compensation for non-production in Yasuní National Park challenging sumak kawsay and degrowth

The Yasuni-ITT Initiative was an innovative development proposal based on the non-production of oil in Yasuni National Park in Ecuador, in exchange for international compensation, eitherin the form of direct payment or payment for environmental services. My aim is to investigate how the different actors understand this compensation for non-production of oil in Ecuador, an oil dependent country. Using a chronological review of the Initiative and forty in-depth interviews with key players, I critically engage the ‘environmental narrative’ around the Initiative inspired by sumak kawsay -a philosophy of life based on non-mercantilist values, known as “well living” in English or “buen vivir” in Spanish- and degrowth. In this article I argue that understanding the Initiative as an environmental matter and not as a problem of oil rent dependency exemplifies the limits of sumak kawsay and degrowth as proposals for an alternative to development. Results from Yasuni show that the Initiative ended up reproducing the fictions of nature valuation instead of de-linking nature from the valuation process. By drawing on a critical political economic framework, this paper shows that categories such as “dependency” and “rent” are fundamental in understanding the challenges of moving away from extraction-based development in developing countries. In summary, failing to differentiate between payment for the non-production of oil and compensation from the environmental services, Yasuni was a ´lost ‘opportunity for a bottom-up debate on what to produce and what not.

Paz Intercultural y Sumak Kawsay ¿Un encuentro con el origen?

In the study of Irenology, in 2003, Fernandez Herreria proposed the concept of the Intercultural Peace, interpreted as a balance between Interior, Social and Gaia Peace. Our interest in this approach, the search for answers to questions about the overlap of the multi- and intercultural concepts, and about the practice of intercultural peace in the context of the loss of identity in the native and immigrant population, made us to get establish contact with different cultures. In Ecuador, we found rich documental information on the studied subject. Following the qualitative study methodology, we dida biographical interview with Ruth Moya, an expert in cross-cultural research and advisor for Intercultural Education Bilingual Programs in Latin America. The analysis of the state of the question and the interview allowed establishing parallelisms between the theoretical foundation of Intercultural Peace and the practice of the Sumak Kawsay indigenous Philosophy. As a future projection this research proposes the development of the anthology of diverse cultural wisdom about peace in order to strengthen the empirical, methodological and theoretical knowledge of Intercultural Peace.

RIGHTS OF NATURE: THE “BIOCENTRIC SPIN” IN THE 2008 CONSTITUTION OF ECUADOR

The 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution built a particular system for environment protection, breaking the dominant paradigm characterized by an anthropocentric and utilitarian relation with nature. The Ecuadorian Constitution raised the nature of the condition "subject of rights". Such a conception is associated to "buen vivir" (Sumak Kawsay in Kichwa), which relates to the ways of life and world view of native peoples. Therefore, this article aims at understanding the social construction of this understanding of nature in the context of the processes experienced in Ecuador and called "New Latin American Constitutionalism". To meet the proposed objective, the methodology used was based on the survey and review of references related to the rights of nature, held in university libraries and at the Supreme Court of Ecuador, as well as on interviews with indigenous leaders, which served to guide reflections. As a result, the analysis of recent legal changes experienced in Ecuador invite us to a comparative reflection on the Brazilian environmental policy.

Sumak Kawsay, coloniality and the criminalisation of violence against women in Ecuador

This article asks if the incorporation of Sumak Kawsay, a concept from Andean philosophy, into the Constitution of Ecuador, has impacted the legal regulation of violence against women. It examines the trajectory of penal reform in the field of domestic violence and suggests that the decolonial shift in the Constitution has failed to significantly disrupt the dominant framework of penality in which gender violence regulation is inscribed. At the same time, feminist demands have been reframed through the formations of criminal law and the dominant political discourse, resulting in provisions that reproduce a positivistic logic and a family protection rationality, with problematic consequences for women’s access to justice on the ground. If securing success in legal reform entails translating emancipatory demands into established and unchallenged penal paradigms, the potential of decolonial notions is overshadowed by the language, formalities and underlying assumptions of criminal law.

EL PRINCIPO DEL BUEN VIVIR O “SUMAK KAWSAY”, COMO FUNDAMENTO PARA EL DECRECIMIENTO ECONÓMICO

<p>Con el Neoliberalismo como modelo económico imperante en los últimos 30 años, el comportamiento consumista de la mayoría de las sociedades occidentales y mediorientales que se incorporaron a la economía mundial desde la revolución asiática, ha jugado un papel importante en la consumación de mayores recursos naturales, ya que concentraron su desarrollo inicial en el uso y exportación de materias primas y bienes del sector primario de las economía. Debido a que la idea de progreso occidental se afincó, entre otras cosas, en el consumo indiscriminado de bienes ‘efímeros’, el ritmo de frenético de la productividad y el reemplazo de los bienes que pasan de moda por la obsolescencia programada, han generado mayor contaminación y deterioro ambiental.</p><p> </p><p>En este sentido, el artículo argumenta sobre la necesidad de implementar otros modelos o ideales de vida y de progreso ante el daño ambiental y social generado por la explotación de los recursos naturales en los países latinoamericanos durante el periodo del neoliberalismo, y el creciente nivel de contaminación y generación de desechos. A partir de los postulados de Vattimo (1994) sobre el fin de la Modernidad, se argumenta sobre el fin de la idea de progreso occidental y la emergencia de otros ideales y estilos de vida. Finalmente se exponen las razones que hacen necesario el cambio de modelo instando a la reducción voluntaria del consumo y el decrecimiento económico como alternativas de desarrollo desligadas de la idea progreso postulada en el mundo occidental, con base en la cosmovisión ancestral kichwa del Buen Vivir o Sumak Kawsay.</p>

Indigenous Ethics and Bionomic Concepts in the New Latin American Constitutions and their Contribution to the Environmental Debate

In Latin America, the public sphere has historically conceded a narrow participation range to the indigenous people. Following democratization that changed the continent starting in the 1980s, some Andean countries began to adopt constitutional reforms that enabled the indigenous communities to participate in national decision making. They even went to the point of putting the traditional justice applied by minority groups and the national modern constitutions on the same level. This is particularly the case with Ecuador and Bolivia. In 2008, Ecuador became the first nation to codify and include in its constitution the Rights of Nature. The Ecuadorian ecosystem, thus, became a person of rights, possessing inalienable rights to exist and flourish. Citizens were as well given authority to petition on behalf of the ecosystem. In Bolivia, the New State Politic Constitution, approved in 2009, bestows upon the indigenous groups the right of applying their own justice. This process expresses the accommodation of two juristic zones: that from the Enlightenment positivistic tradition and the autochthonous one. This new legal architecture included regional popular ethical principles that widened the debate about the natural environment and the way the state deals with it. It is the case of concepts like Pachamama (a holistic notion of world) and sumak kawsay (equivalent to that of wellbeing, or even the Good Life). Their revival has diversified the internal juridical landscape by adding an Amerindian perspectivism. This paper will investigate the range of the application of indigenous Ethics and bionomic concepts in multicultural societies, specifically in the case of Latin American countries that have included such elements in their constitutions. It will discuss whether that sort of parallel axiological system could represent a valuable contribution to the global environmental debate.

Ubuntu and sumak kawsay: The Inter-Parliamentary Union and the search for a global South humanist paradigm of development

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) continuously seeks to assert itself as a voice of the peoples of the world in global debates, where geopolitical interests of states, often representing political and economic elites, dominate. This article critically analyses one of the latest contributions to norm setting and idea-generation by the IPU: the concepts of ubuntu and sumak kawsay (also known as buen vivir in Spanish and living well in English) as the basis for the international response to the challenge of failed development strategies globally. This proposal from the IPU arises from the exhaustion of the dominant discourses and concepts underpinning international development. These discourses are based on the colonial model of power and are increasingly being challenged by calls from subaltern voices for ‘unthinking, rethinking and delinking’ from hegemonic illusions. Further, the article argues, the proposed ideals of ‘living well’ and ‘human solidarity’ cannot be implemented within the current colonially inspired humanist paradigm, but require a ‘decolonial’ orientation of global humanism.

¿Es posible un patrimonio cultural para el Sumak Kawsay?: un largo camino por recorrer

From the perspective of cultural heritage we will review the path taken by heritage policies and the modes it acquired in Coastal Ecuador. We will discuss how far the current political project centered around the concept of “Sumak Kawsay” or “Buen Vivir” (Good Living), as a counter hegemonic punch directed at development policies, has the actual potential of turning the willingness to promote heritage through tourism, to improve the local economy. Pushing tourism and heritage as a part of the productive matrix to achieve “Buen Vivir”, will depend on the abandonment of the antiquarian/collectionism paradigm, a professional training, participative social thinking, and the renewal of all the areas of bureaucratic and administrative affairs.

El sumak kawsay genuino como fenómeno social amazónico ecuatoriano

En este artículo se indaga sobre el origen del concepto de sumak kawsay. Partiendo de la constatación de su existencia como fenómeno social: se muestra cómo surgió como alternativa al desarrollo sustentable en la Organización de Pueblos Indígenas de Pastaza en los años noventa; se explica cómo su emergencia en el ámbito intelectual occidental es consecuencia de la divulgación que realizó Carlos Viteri a finales del siglo XX y comienzos del siglo XXI; se explica que dicho fenómeno es la forma de vida cotidiana y la aspiración vital de los pueblos indígenas amazónicos; y se describe cómo el concepto llegó a las constituciones de Ecuador y Bolivia referido ya a las sociedades andino-amazónicas.

Neo-extractivism and the Resource Curse Hypothesis: Evidence from Ecuador

The aim of this article is to evaluate the policies carried out by the Government of Ecuador regarding the management of natural resources in the context of the Revolucion Ciudadana, which was designed to create a society based on Buen Vivir. The choice of intensifying the mining sector shows a change in the government’s philosophy (from Sumak Kawsay to neo-extractivism) and requires an analysis that highlights the possible risks outlined by the extensive literature on the Resource Curse Hypothesis. This article analyzes the conditions, which are essential for avoiding the Resource Curse Hypothesis, in order to assess the economic effectiveness of the change of perspective, operated, under the Revolucion Ciudadana.

El Buen Vivir como alternativa al desarrollo. Algunas reflexiones económicas y no tan económicas

The article begins with a critique of the historical construction of concepts such as “progress” and “development” that have been used for centuries to justify colonialist and capitalist proposals and promises of welfare. For a large part of mankind, these promises have not been fulfi lled. Therefore, a growing debate on “alternative development” and “civilizational change” has emerged. Within this debate, the indigenous peoples of the Andes and the Amazon have put forward another proposal: the “good living” or Sumak Kawsay, that has been included in the Constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia. Good Living is about values, experiences and practices from indigenous community, and it focuses on harmony among individuals living in the community, among peoples, and among them and nature. For example, in the Constitution of Ecuador Nature is a subject of rights. In the same vein, the Constitution intends a transition towards caring and sustainable economy, which includes the decrease of extractive economy and focuses on local and participatory policies. “Good living” needs to be understood more as an experience than as a mere concept. Consequently it makes possible to build a world in which all worlds can’ t, where all human beings can live with dignity.

Sumak Kawsay, Feminisms and Post-Growth: Linkages to Imagine New Utopias

This article explores the different understandings of gender that correspond to different concepts of sumak kawsay, tackling both ‘gender’ and ‘sumak kawsay’ as polysemous concepts. The article focuses specifically on the degrowth perspective, which is part of the ecological post-developmental understanding of sumak kawsay. It explores the implications that follow from these perspectives when questioning androcentric gender relationships. Additionally, the article exposes the meanings which the feminist economics of rupture attributes to the conceptual category of ‘the sustainability of life’, highlighting the overlaps and divergences with the post-growth understanding of that same category. The article defends the importance of resituating political and feminist debates under utopic horizons, such as those of sumak kawsay and post-growth.

Greening the Petrochemical State: Between Energy Sovereignty and Sumak Kawsay in Coastal Ecuador

ResumenA fines de 2007, Hugo Chávez se reunió con Rafael Correa en la costa occidental de Ecuador para iniciar oficialmente la construcción de lo que se prevé sea uno de los mayores complejos petroquímicos en Sur América: La Refinería del Pacifico (RDP). Para los partidarios, la refinería garantiza al Ecuador soberanía energética, mientras que para los opositores es una violación fundamental de los principios ambientales básicos establecidos en la constitución ecuatoriana de 2008. Basados en seis meses de trabajo de campo etnográfico con representantes de la RDP y activistas en la provincia de Manabi, el presente ensayo explora las formas conflictivas del discurso respaldado por el estado en cuanto a "soberanía energética" y "sumak kawsay" que han sido re‐planteados en el actual proyecto de desarrollo de mayor envergadura a nivel nacional. Específicamente, llamo a la atención los esfuerzos de la refinería para auto representarse de "forma autóctona" ante la provincia de Manabí que nos permite entender mejor como los cambios a gran escala en ideologías políticas han sido traducidos en giros idiomáticos locales y fantasias.

The Old New Words for an Economy of Life: Sumak Kawsay, Kabuhanan, Kalusugan, Kalikasan

The Old New Words for an Economy of Life: Sumak Kawsay, Kabuhanan, Kalusugan, Kalikasan