Buen vivir (Good Living): A “Glocal” Genealogy of a Latin American Utopia for the World

• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211009242
• Published date: 01 May 2021
• Date: 01 May 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211009242

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 238, Vol. 48 No. 3, May 2021, 17–34

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211009242

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

17

Buen vivir (Good Living)

A “Glocal” Genealogy of a Latin American Utopia

for the World

by

Adrián E. Beling, Ana Patricia Cubillo-Guevara, Julien Vanhulst,

and Antonio Luis Hidalgo-Capitán

Buen vivir (good living) discourse emerged at the turn of the century in the context

of global political contestation around the prevailing development model at the intersec-

tion of multiple actors, discourses, and struggles. A genealogical reconstruction of this

discourse disputes the ethnocentric character often attributed to it outside Latin America

as an allegedly indigenous discursive product. Instead, buen vivir is a prime example of

“glocal” discursive articulation in pursuit of alter- and postdevelopmentalist utopias—a

cultural-political experiment that holds valuable lessons for global debates around alterna-

tive socio-ecological futures.

El discurso del “buen vivir” surgió a principios de siglo en el contexto de la contienda

política global en torno al modelo de desarrollo prevaleciente en la intersección de múlti-

ples actores, discursos y luchas. Una reconstrucción genealógica de dicho discurso cues-

tiona el carácter etnocéntrico que a menudo se le atribuye fuera de América Latina, donde

se le mira como un producto discursivo supuestamente indígena. Sin embargo, el buen

vivir es un excelente ejemplo de articulación discursiva “glocal” en busca de utopías alter-

y postdesarrollistas, un experimento cultural-político que puede brindar valiosas lecciones

a los debates globales en torno a futuros socioecológicos alternativos.

Keywords: Buen vivir, (Post)development, Latin America, Ecology, Discourse

Buen vivir (good living), understood as a contemporary cultural, social,

and ecological regulatory ideal, is a discourse that has found anchorage in

public and academic debates in the past two decades (Vanhulst, 2015), par-

ticularly in the field of development studies (Hidalgo-Capitán, 2011). It can be

broadly defined as a community-oriented cultural paradigm of social organi-

zation based on a way of life that maintains a relationship of respect, harmony,

and balance with everything that exists, understanding that everything is

Adrian E. Beling is a researcher with the Global Studies Program of the Latin American Faculty of

Social Sciences (FLACSO) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and executive director of Ecocene

Foundation. Ana Patricia Cubillo-Guevara is a temporary lecturer of sociology at the University

of Huelva, Spain, and a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Group. Julien Vanhulst is a

sociologist and sustainability scientist in the Urban Territorial Studies Center of Maule Catholic

University in Talca, Chile. Antonio Luis Hidalgo-Capitán is an associate professor of economics

at the University of Huelva and a member of its Research Center on Contemporary Thought and

Innovation for Social Development.

1009242LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211009242LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVESBeling et al. / BUEN VIVIR

research-article2021

18 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

interconnected, interdependent, and interrelated (Huanacuni, 2010). Three

dimensions are usually considered as central to buen vivir discourse: harmony

with oneself (identity), with society (equity), and with nature (sustainability)

(Cubillo-Guevara, Hidalgo-Capitán, and García-Alvarez, 2016).

While rooted in the cultural tradition of the indigenous peoples of the

Andean-Amazonian region, as a contemporary discursive construction buen

vivir is framed within global debates around alternative forms of development

and alternatives to development (Vanhulst, 2015; Vanhulst and Beling, 2014;

2017). In this regard, buen vivir is part of a global field of social, political, and

academic debate and participates in a dynamic of cross-pollination with other

“discourses of transition”—discourses advocating a whole-societal transfor-

mation toward global social and ecological sustainability, breaking with the

inherently ungeneralizable model of social organization of the modern West,

which has, however, become globally dominant (Beling etal., 2018; Escobar,

2011). This article enquires about the origins and evolution of this contempo-

rary Latin American discourse,1 thereby seeking to elucidate the question of the

allegedly idiosyncratic character of buen vivir and its relevance to broader

international social and environmental debates.

Given that our interest is in understanding buen vivir as an emerging dis-

cursive phenomenon rather than as a concept with abstract meaning(s),2 in

the following we will focus mainly on (1) a spatial axis of political-institu-

tional context analysis (at both the territorial and the global level) of its emer-

gence, which contributed to a structural readjustment of political forces in the

Andean-Amazonian region that produced buen vivir as a discursive and

political innovation (Altmann, 2013a; de la Cadena, 2010), and (2) a temporal

axis consisting of the phases of its emergence and consolidation as a distinc-

tive discourse, highlighting the involvement of diverse political and social

actors.

To this end, we will adopt a methodological approach of historically

embedded critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995; Seantel, 2013; Wodak,

2001). Implicit here is the initial hypothesis that buen vivir discourse emerged

or evolved not through diffuse social interaction but through the deliberate

action of concrete agents with specific goals, drivers, and socio-cognitive

frameworks and embedded in a specific power matrix. The genealogical

approach (Foucault, 1975) and the critical-discourse-analysis approach con-

verge in their framing of discourses as meaning structures resulting from the

contingent interaction of multiple actors in a specific and power-laden spa-

tiotemporal context (Fairclough, 1995; Seantel, 2013). We therefore focus on

the historical phases in which sociopolitical and cultural contexts have

opened windows of opportunity for certain agents to (re)construct the dis-

course of buen vivir as a function of their own worldviews and interests. We

seek to account for the discursive coalitions and points of intersection of

(trans)territorial flows and structures that reveal how buen vivir emerged

and evolved and, more important, how these intersections constitute poten-

tial docking points for strategic and deeper discursive articulations in the

construction of civilizational alternatives that are socially and ecologically

sustainable (Beling etal., 2018).