The Andean Sumak Kawsay As Sociopolitical Resistance And As An Epistemic Challenge

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 21st century, but mainly as of 2006, in the Republic of Ecuador a significant indigenous influence was felt at the socio-political level, in constitutional texts, state development plans and public policies. We will analyze certain inputs that the indigenous peoples have offered in the Andean country and that have represented elements of resistance against neoliberal hegemony and extractive developmentalism. Specifically, we will examine how discourses and practices have been built around Good Living (Sumak Kawsay) and how such process is articulated with more advanced global logics of indigenism in the Latin American region. We will verify what it means, politically and epistemically, the commitment that Ecuador has made to endow the country with the rights of nature and to define itself, for the first time in its history, as plurinational