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On Cultural Direction of Socio-Ecological Transformations: Lessons from Degrowth and Buen Vivir/sumak kawsay

Buen Vivir/Sumak Kawsay

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Degrowth Decolonization and Development

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Abstract

This chapter brings degrowth into conversation with Buen Vivir/sumak kawsay, an alternative to development from Ecuador. The Anthropocene is a crisis marked by multiple ecological crises, but also by dualistic and hierarchical structures of oppression. It’s a civilisationary crisis that needs to be confronted in all its intersecting dimensions. Anthropocentrism is one of the defining features of this new geological epoch, and stands in the way of more profound socioecological transformations towards ecological sustainability and social wellbeing. This chapter therefore generates an inter-epistemic dialogue between Buen Vivir/sumak kawsay, an Andean-Amazonian conceptualisation of Good Living, and degrowth, a social movement from the Global North that advocates a democratic and redistributive reduction of affluency-based consumption and production patterns in line with social and ecological boundaries. The chapter is based on research carried out in Ecuador in 2020 into Buen Vivir/sumak kawsay in practice. The dialogue between these two projects serves to overcome remnants of anthropocentrism in degrowth thought and practice. Reciprocal practices with the non-human world, observed in Ecuador, can give impetus to the cultural direction of socioecological transformation processes, alongside socioeconomic reforms and policies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Interculturality refers to the political and ideological principle of mutual respect for, and equitable relations between, the different cultural practices of Ecuador’s diverse ethnic groups and nationalities (CONAIE 2012, 55). Plurinationality refers to the exercise of collective rights and self-determination by the Ecuadorian indigenous nationalities within the modern nation state.

  2. 2.

    There are, of course, lessons to be learned from degrowth for the practice and theory of BV/sk, for example, in relation to its political economy analysis and operationalisation of reciprocity. Analysing these lessons, however, would go beyond the scope of this chapter.

  3. 3.

    Defined here as a specific, that is, Euro-Atlantic, civilisationary model whose socio-cultural, psychological and economic structures, such as capitalism, heteronormativity, the nuclear family, subjectivities like the citizen, homo economicus or the consumer, a racialised and gendered division of salaried and non-salaried labour exploitation, and the nature/culture binary, have their origins in Renaissance Europe and its constitutive colonial conquests and exploitation in the tropics and elsewhere (Escobar 2010; Lugones et al. 2008; Quijano 2000).

  4. 4.

    This chapter uses the abbreviation BV/sk to acknowledge the fact that the term Buen Vivir has evolved beyond its original Kichwa meaning without erasing its indigenous provenance. As such, ‘BV/sk’ recognises this political project as a civilisationary alternative (Richter 2022, 277).

  5. 5.

    Use of Buen Vivir in a non-government sense, however, isn’t restricted to the indigenous movements – the cooperative housing project Alianza Solidaria in Quito is known as the “barrio del Buen Vivir” (neighbourhood of Good Living) and is built on collective labour, ecological restoration and community organisation (Richter 2022, 320–22).

  6. 6.

    A chakra is an allotment, and the spiritual and productive centre of communal and family life (FAO 2020).

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Acknowledgements

This chapter is based on conference presentations at two international degrowth conferences in 2021. It draws on PhD research conducted at the Goldsmiths Department of Politics and International Relations, 2016–2021. The research was supported by funding by the Royal Economic Society, the Goldsmiths Graduate School, and the British Federation of Women Graduates, for which the author is immensely grateful. The author would also like to thank Miriam Lang and Stephanie Eileen Domptail for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

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    Katharina Richter

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  1. Institute of Economic Sciences, Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade, Serbia

    Milica Kočović De Santo

  2. Institute for agricultural policy and market research, University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany

    Stéphanie Eileen Domptail

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Richter, K. (2023). On Cultural Direction of Socio-Ecological Transformations: Lessons from Degrowth and Buen Vivir/sumak kawsay. In: De Santo, M.K., Domptail, S.E. (eds) Degrowth Decolonization and Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25945-6_5

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