Good Living in Practice: The case of Buen Vivir/sumak kawsay in Ecuador

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This talk by Katharina Richter and Luis Gonzalez-Quizhpe was presented during 'The Good Life: Global Perspectives on Wellbeing and Happiness,' a workshop organized by the Wisconsin International Resource Consortium (WIRC) at UW-Madison.
Dr. Katharina Richter of the University of Bristol and Luis Gonzalez-Quizhpe of Harvard University explore Buen Vivir/ sumak kawsay, an Andean-Amazonian conceptualization of Good Living that originates in the indigenous world. It has been enshrined as the right to Good Living in the 2008 Ecuadorian constitution. Though contested by multiple actors, Buen Vivir/ sumak kawsay offers an alternative to growth-based development models by fostering cultural, economic and social diversity and emphasizing relational, that is, communal and reciprocal interactions between people, nature and communities. This talk will explore a grassroots, decolonial interpretation of this Kichwa alternative to development. It will center the lives and experiences of the main protagonists of Buen Vivir as a political project, that is, the indigenous peoples of Ecuador, and is based on a qualitative study of Buen Vivir/ sumak kawsay in Ecuador, carried out from January to March 2020. It will explore what Good Living means in practice when considering Buen Vivir/sumak kawsay as a territorial, political, and grassroots decolonial project.
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