Good Living or Living Well as a critical approach to the predominant vision of development in Latin America

Abstract

For over a decade now, Latin America has played a leading role in renewing the critique of the notion of western development by ascribing constitutional status to the knowledge and practices of native peoples of the continent. Thus, the Good Living or Living Well (GL/LW) have become alternatives to development as they question the conception of only economic growth, by putting forward a balanced relationship with nature, and redefining exchange relationships on the basis of the reciprocity principle. Hence, in this work, we intend to analyze the constitutional reform processes of Ecuador and Bolivia based on GL/LW as critique to the proposal of the hegemonic notion of development. It is important to highlight the visibility acquired by these alternative ways of organizing community life against an economy of capital accumulation, which purports to be a globally closed and unique option (Álvarez, 2012: 168). Now, after 10 years since the beginnings of these processes, can it be said that these reforms had a significant impact on our society? By virtue of these alternatives to the hegemonic model of production, new fields of research have opened up about the different forms of contradiction between capital-labor.