Beyond Western Dichotomies of Power: Life-Centered Development, Reciprocity and Co-creation Within Nature

Abstract

The chapter opens up key dichotomies characterizing the Western cartesian worldview and modernity to shed light on the consequences of an understanding of the world characterized by binaries and to open up the doors towards a new space of flourishing. We understand decolonization efforts in economic thinking and science as attempts to destabilize this binary world organization and to create a new space of possibilities, enabled by a worldview where power relations are distributed anew. We beginn by identifying and questioning the divides between who is central and who is peripheral, who is developed and who is developing, who is studying and who is being studied, how knowledge is created and accepted, who is controlling and who/what is being controlled. At the same time, we identify concepts lived among some communities that transcend these dichotomies, growing some early branches and roots cracking the colonial and modern Western edifice of thought and values. These include real existing practices such as Buen Vivir, life-centered development, self-governance in Yugoslavia (as endogenous knowledge), reciprocal relations with the non-human world, co-creation with nature, maintenance of the life-basis and reproduction of life, beauty, gender mainstreaming, positionality in science. These ideas and their practice help us redefine our models of thought and analysis, and contribute to the making of a worldview where our identity as humans may become newly defined.