Sumak Kawsay as an Element of Local Decolonization in Ecuador

Abstract

The concept of sumak kawsay, buen vivir or “good life”—in Bolivia, suma qamaña, 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.