An alternative to ‘alternative development’?: Buen vivir and human development in Andean countries

Abstract

In Bolivia and Ecuador the concept of Buen vivir, based on indigenous cosmologies, has been formulated by indigenous organisations as an alternative paradigm to mainstream development theory. It has also inspired environmentalist movements in their struggle for a different environmental governance beyond extractivism, and it has been appropriated by national governments to justify economic and social policies and their political agendas. In Peru, Buen vivir is emerging as a political project to express ecological concerns, as well as self-determination, territoriality and cultural rights of indigenous peoples. In these experiences the formulation and implementation of Buen vivir is a complex and contentious process which expresses the tensions and dynamics between indigenous politics and the political economy of extraction. This article explores the different meanings of Buen vivir in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru and the struggle of indigenous peoples to re-appropriate the concept which has been co-opted by the state using conventional views of development. We argue that Buen vivir serves as a political platform on the basis of which different social movements articulate social and ecological demands based on indigenous principles, in order to challenge the economic and political fundamentals of the state and the current theory, politics and policy-making of development.

Keywords:

• Human development
• Buen vivir
• indigenous peoples

Acknowledgements

An early draft of this paper was presented at the Fifth Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean Association for the Human Development and Capability Approach (ALCADECA) on “Ethics, Agency and Human Development” at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru (May 2014). I am grateful for the comments from the colleagues who participated at the Conference. I especially thank the University of Bath for the financial support of the University Research Scholarship, and Ana Dinerstein for her support during my PhD research. Finally, I would like to thank the four anonymous referees for their useful comments.

Notes

1. The ways these different actors interact with the notion of Buen vivir is complex. Indigenous peoples have historically connected the idea of Buen vivir with their claims for self-determination, territoriality and ecological concerns, whereas since the 1990s postmodern and critical political ecology intellectuals have emphasised the necessity of ecological conservation and the implementation of small and solidary economies by grassroots and peasant movements. The indigenous and the critical intellectual perspectives are not necessarily in contradiction but intellectuals have sometimes constructed theoretical proposals without understanding the real needs and aspirations of indigenous peoples. The socialist perspective of Buen vivir was implemented through state policies in Bolivia and Ecuador in the 2000s, directed towards nationalising extractive industries or diminishing the power of transnational corporations on resource sovereignty but without questioning the political economy. Today indigenous peoples still struggle against the state and transnational corporations in order to assert an idea of Buen vivir related to their own self-determination and territoriality.

2. Post-development scholars such as Esteva and Prakash (1998) reject the construction of “under-developed” and the whole category of development by questioning its foundational paradigm of progress, its pretension of universality, and the way in which colonialism was ignored in the analysis of the richness of the developers and the poverty of the underdeveloped.

3. By hegemonic practices I mean the exercise of domination without applying direct violence; for example, the normalisation of racism in social and economic policies. Counter-hegemonic practices are the political demands of those groups affected by hegemonic practices.

4. Linera is referring to the tensions between the socialist project fostered by political parties and social movements, and the indigenous project fostered by indigenous organisations.

5. In Bolivia, indianidad is the political expression of indigenism, especially in academic circles and indigenous movements, while “Citizen revolution” (revolución ciudadana) is the political slogan of the Ecuadorian government.

6. In 2012–2013 I did fieldwork with the Awajun people in the northern Amazon and the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon (AIDESEP). The Awajun is one of the 52 indigenous peoples officially recognised by the Peruvian state (Ministry of Culture, 2014). According to the Vice Ministry of Intercultural Affairs (Ministry of Culture, 2014), the 2007 census of indigenous communities of the Amazon estimated there were 55,366 people self-identified as Awajun, inhabiting native communities and centros poblados located mainly in the departments of Loreto, Amazonas, San Martin and Cajamarca. Most Awajun organisations are part of AIDESEP, the most important Amazonian indigenous organisation.

7. My fieldwork with activists from Bolivia and Ecuador helped provide contextual information for the overall region, while quotations are provided in this paper from indigenous informants in Peru.

8. Interview, Amazonas, 8 April 2013.

9. Interview, Amazonas, 10 April 2013.

10. Interview, Amazonas, 9 April 2013.

11. Interview with another informant, Amazonas, 9 April 2013.

12. Interview, Lima, 17 October 2012.

13. Interview, Amazonas, 14 April 2013.

14. Interview, Amazonas, 15 April 2013.

15. Interview, Lima, 4 April 2013.

16. Interview, Amazonas, 9 April 2013.

17. Interview, Amazonas, 12 April 2013.

18. Interview, Lima, 17 October 2012.