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The document discusses the concept of sumak kawsay or well-being, which originated in indigenous movements in Ecuador and Bolivia in the 1990s as an alternative to conventional development models. Sumak kawsay is based on Andean principles of relationality, reciprocity, correspondence, and complementarity, emphasizing living in harmony with nature and community. It is considered a life paradigm opposed to Western individualism and capitalism. The document examines debates around defining and translating sumak kawsay, which aims to go beyond notions of economic growth to promote fullness of life for all.
The document discusses the concept of sumak kawsay or well-being, which originated in indigenous movements in Ecuador and Bolivia in the 1990s as an alternative to conventional development models. Sumak kawsay is based on Andean principles of relationality, reciprocity, correspondence, and complementarity, emphasizing living in harmony with nature and community. It is considered a life paradigm opposed to Western individualism and capitalism. The document examines debates around defining and translating sumak kawsay, which aims to go beyond notions of economic growth to promote fullness of life for all.
The document discusses the concept of sumak kawsay or well-being, which originated in indigenous movements in Ecuador and Bolivia in the 1990s as an alternative to conventional development models. Sumak kawsay is based on Andean principles of relationality, reciprocity, correspondence, and complementarity, emphasizing living in harmony with nature and community. It is considered a life paradigm opposed to Western individualism and capitalism. The document examines debates around defining and translating sumak kawsay, which aims to go beyond notions of economic growth to promote fullness of life for all.
The origin of sumak kawsay concept is difficult to track over time, although, many authors agree that it takes strength since the 90s, when in the Ecuadorian case the political presence of the indigenous movements emerged with force, as well, came together a several internal educational initiatives and international cooperation programmes that promoted the well-being principles. Something, similar happened with sumak qamaa or living-well in Bolivia, which apparently was set up by indigenous movements and by certain left-side intellectuals groups.
Gudynas (2011a) considered the well-being idea emerged from dissatisfaction against conventional development, because to search alternatives to improve the life quality and protect nature (pacha mama). But this birth does not imply that the concept construction is done, it should be seen as a diverse construction and commissioning. This construction is also multicultural, with contributions from several indigenous worldviews and the confluence of several paradigms such as human development, the ethno-development, among others. The questioning of nature as commerce also contributes to the sumak kawsay proposal.
The word translation in kichwa sumak kawsay is important because it brings complexity and it has to pay attention because that could lose its essence and philosophical content. According to Huanacuni (2010), it is essential to find the most reliable translations for suma qamaa in aymara language and sumak kawsay in kichwa. Suma qamaa used in Bolivia should be translated as life in fullness, though, formally, it translates as living well.
On the other hand, sumak kawsay used in Ecuador begins with sumak which means fullness, sublime, excellent, magnificent, beautiful, superior, comprehensive, symbiotic and holistic. Then, kawsay means life, be-still standing, with which the literal translation of sumak kawsay would be the fullness of life, although, formally, it translates as well-being, such as the Republic Constitution of Ecuador picks it up.
Therefore, the concept of the sumak kawsay carries an aesthetic, cosmological character, holistic, and politician approach. One way, that we consider valid to simplify the analysis of this concept and to contribute to better understanding, it is possible to focus on the principles that animate it.
In effect, it is important to understand that sumak kawsay is a life principle or a life paradigm that is based on four principles based on the Andean indigenous worldview and ancestral knowledge: i) Relationality refers to the interconnection between all the elements; ii) Reciprocity that has to view as a reciprocal relationship between the worlds above down, now, between human beings and nature, a kind of partnership; iii) Correspondence refers to reality elements corresponds an harmoniously, as proportionality, and iv) Complementarity based on that opposites can be complementary.
Huanacuni (2010) says that the sumak kawsay is based on a community paradigm that includes life in harmony and balance with the environment. He says it tries to be an indigenous-original-community paradigm. The community should be understood as the relations between parties that form a whole, whether human or not. Cultural identity arises from relationship with the pacha mama, which set up a way of life, also involves the memory recovery and ancestral history as a support of a new vision.
This author makes a clarification about the community dimension because seems relevant, in the sense, that community paradigm does not end in the cultural dimensions, also carries the validity of a economic community, whose operation is based on principles such as: harmony, balance, reciprocity and complementarity.
The Development Council of Nationalities and People of Ecuador (CODENPE) defines the sumak kawsay or well-being as a new paradigm of life compared to the Ecuadors developmental model, so:
In this view, the sumak kawsay in its maximum expression is to live in community, fullness, brotherhood, complementarity, relationality among human beings, human beings and nature, humans and spirituality. In this regard, underline that the ancestral thought is eminently collective: necessarily relies on the idea of the us because the world can not be understood from the perspective of individualism [...] Finally, we can point out that well-being is not just a romantic speech but implies to take on challenges aimed to define deep transformations in our societies, in opposition to the capitalist logic of economic growth and profits accumulations (CODENPE, 2001: 23) 1
The National Secretary for Planning and Development (SENPLADES) keeps track programmatic and conceptual, about sumak kawsay in the Ecuador. It is conceived as a contribution of the Andean ancestral cultures that goes beyond notions of progress, modernization and economic growth. Accordingly:
Live is a bet by change that builds continuously from claims of social actors in Latin America in recent decades, to reinforced a broader view, which exceed narrow margins quantitative of economistic that permit the new economic model implementation whose purpose is not the accumulation material, mechanistic and endless of goods, but which add to the actors who have historically been excluded from the capitalist market logic, as well as those forms of production and
1 CODENPE is a indigenous public institution who represent 14 nationalities and 18 legally recognized people in Ecuador. reproduction based on principles different from the market logic. Likewise, the well-being is built from the positions which assert the revision and reinterpretation of the relationship between nature and human beings, i.e., from transit to bio- pluralism (quoted by Guimaraes in Acosta, 2008) current anthropocentrism, as human activity must make use of natural resources adapted to the natural re- generation (SENPLADES, 2009: 24)
Until here there is a consensus in relation to the concept of sumak kawsay, that finally would translate as well-being, live in harmony, or live in equilibrium, which implies opposition to western life-styles. However, authors such as Oviedo (2011), who critically warns of possible concepts contamination by the western civilization paradigm, in the sense that this translation of sumak kawsay as living in harmony or live in balance turns out incomplete, because sumak kawsay is all at the same time: the coexistence between diverse, mindfulness and wide life culture and not only the human being. 2
Ultimately, the Andean ancestral postulates, that feed directly to the sumak kawsay, are based on a set of principles with a strong spiritual connotation in opposition to materialism and a holistic, as opposed to economistic approaches. It is not a proposal closed and circumscribed exclusively by and for the peoples and indigenous nationalities, rather, it has a claim of universal application as long as it must be understood as an alternative and critical paradigm of capitalism principles and its modern-rationalist support.
2 What really worries Oviedo (2011) is to avoid confusion between well-being and live better, since the latter would lead us back to the western and capitalist life paradigm. To our knowledge, this aspect is transcendent because it opens the debate over anti-capitalist sense or not related to sumak kawsay. Box 1: Main theoretical features of the SK
DIMENSIONES FEAUTURES Development Conception Denies the development concept . It dematerialises the idea of well-being, centrality of nature, austerity and explotation of local resources. (Gudynas, 2011a, 2009b,2004; Unceta, 2010). Another form of life, harmonious relationship between humans for collective coexistence among it and whit nature. Underdevelopment Conception There are not neither underdevelopment as a situation which then becomes development nor as the development absence . It lives well or live badly. People suffer from an abnormal development (Tortosa, 2011; Acosta, 2010 y 2009c). Development Key Variable Multifactorial: importance of local traditional and technical knowledge; diversity in the production forms; cultural identity; nature enjoys rights (Escobar, 2010). Development Political Strategy Direct participation and self-management. Construction of multicultural dialogue (Acosta, 2010 y 2009a, 2009c; Escobar, 2010). Construction of the plurinational State. Process for other development Claimed Indigenous worldviews; changes in economic priorities; coexistence without misery (Acosta, 2010 y 2009c) Source: The author