On Cultural Direction of Socio-Ecological Transformations: Lessons from Degrowth and Buen Vivir/Sumak Kawsay

This chapter brings degrowth into conversation with Buen Vivir/sumak kawsay, an alternative to development from Ecuador. The Anthropocene is a crisis marked by multiple ecological crises, but also by dualistic and hierarchical structures of oppression. It’s a civilisationary crisis that needs to be confronted in all its intersecting dimensions. Anthropocentrism is one of the defining features of this new geological epoch, and stands in the way of more profound socioecological transformations towards ecological sustainability and social wellbeing. This chapter therefore generates an inter-epistemic dialogue between Buen Vivir/sumak kawsay, an Andean-Amazonian conceptualisation of Good Living, and degrowth, a social movement from the Global North that advocates a democratic and redistributive reduction of affluency-based consumption and production patterns in line with social and ecological boundaries. The chapter is based on research carried out in Ecuador in 2020 into Buen Vivir/sumak kawsay in practice. The dialogue between these two projects serves to overcome remnants of anthropocentrism in degrowth thought and practice. Reciprocal practices with the non-human world, observed in Ecuador, can give impetus to the cultural direction of socioecological transformation processes, alongside socioeconomic reforms and policies.