Figure 2.1. A photograph depicting Buen Vivir, by a communications student at the University of Antioquia, in Colombia.

In Chapter 1 we introduced Pachakuti, a worldview of Aymara and Quechua indigenous people. For members of Aymara and Quechua communities, time is experienced as cyclical. Pachakuti marks periods of time when social and environmental circumstances enter into a major change. Applied to current times, especially in the face of our environmental crisis, Pachakuti reflects a call for the return of earth-based cultures that care for the earth and for the decolonization of traditionally indigenous lands (Arnez 2021).

Alongside the notion of Pachakuti lives the philosophy of Buen Vivir. A Spanish phrase, Buen Vivir directly translates as “good living”, or “living well”. Buen Vivir can also be described as a social movement; one of the main topics of the study of social change. We’ll explore social movements in more detail in Chapter 9.

2.1.1 Buen Vivir: A Social Movement

Buen Vivir is an interpretation of the Quechua and Aymara phrase, Sumak kawsay. Sumak Kawsay is a call to envision an ideal and beautiful life; a life in harmony. It’s an encouragement to apply our memories from the past to create meaning and hope for a dignified life in the present. Combined, it is a summons to live a “Plentiful Life” (Lechón 2017). Figure 2.1 shows a photographic depiction of Buen Vivir, by a communications student at the University of Antioquia, in Colombia.

Crucial to this “Plentiful Life” is that our focus on well-being is not aimed at the individual. It instead calls for individuals within a community to live that Plentiful Life in relation to our specific cultural-natural environment. Buen Vivir calls for a new set of ethics that balance quality of life, democracy, and giving inherent value to all living things. It promotes “collective well-being”, or one great family (Arnez 2021). Another idea crucial to a Plentiful Life is the rejection of segments of Western thinking that places humans as the most important entities on earth. Instead, Buen Vivir calls for humans to have a reciprocal relationship with the Earth and all living beings (Arnez 2021).

The concept of Sumak kawsay has existed since before colonial times. But in the early 2000s, it moved into larger mainstream conversations in Latin America and beyond. Indigenous organizations played a significant role in spreading the ideals of the Plentiful Life. These organizations included the Confederations of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru, and larger coalitions of the Andean world such as the Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations (Hidalgo-Capitán and Cubillo-Guevara 2017).

In 2011, in Quito, Ecuador, delegations from Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Ecuador attended the first gathering among Andean peoples to hear keynotes and lectures, join dances, and discuss the principles of Sumak kawsay (Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2 The first Meeting of Andean Peoples and Nationalities for the Sumak Kawsay Plurinationality and Interculturality, September, 2011 in Quito, Ecuador.

Foreign and local anthropologists working in the Ecuadorian Amazon in the 1980s and 1990s also helped spread the concept to areas outside of the Andes, as did political and social research institutes, think tanks dedicated to supporting indigenous peoples, and intellectuals associated with the Catholic Church.

Buen Vivir has become the way to communicate the ideas and ideals of the Plentiful Life in Spanish, reaching a larger audience. In the late 2000s the rights to the way of life that Buen Vivir upholds were incorporated into the constitutions of Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009) (Zimmerer 2021). Ecuador’s new constitution outlined that the government will uphold Sumak kawsay by:

• guaranteeing Ecuadorians have a right to live in an ecologically balanced environment;
• acknowledging the Amazon rainforest is important for ecological balance on Earth and provide it protection;
• developing economic, political, sociocultural, and environmental systems that support Sumak Kawsay ideals;
• and promoting the use of scientific research, technological research, and ancestral wisdom to achieve Sumak kawsay.
  (Pachamama Alliance n.d)

Bolivia’s constitutional changes recognized Buen Vivir as one of the principles for guiding action of the state. Those principles manifest in actions such as ensuring dignity, social and gender equity, and social justice to everyone in Bolivian society. Related to these changes, in 2009, Bolivia also led an initiative for the United Nations General Assembly to proclaim April 22nd as ‘International Mother Earth Day’. Two years following, Bolivia’s 2011 Law of Mother Nature was the first legislation at the national-level to bestow rights to the natural world. (Mercado 2017 and Rapid Transition Alliance 2018).

Today, Buen Vivir influences academic and activist circles in North America, Europe and Asia (Hernández and Laats 2020). In 2017 an international conference on Buen Vivir was held in Munich, Germany to explore, “What is it that makes a good life?” The conference was supported by the European Commission (the governing body of the European Union) that promotes lifestyle choices and policies for positive effects on the environment and communities throughout the world (Simpson, 2017). Figure 2.3 shows a silent parade during the Buen Vivir conference in Munich.

Figure 2.3 A Silent Parade during the Buen Vivir Conference in Munich, 2017

2.1.2 Social Change and Buen Vivir

How did the concept of Buen Vivir evolve and spread so rapidly? Why does it seem to be ever-increasing in importance to people? How has it reached as far as it has? Applying sociology to those questions, we can point to a mix of social interactions – at the global level between nations, or at the regional level – such as ecological zones. We can also examine interactions at the community level among villages and cities, and the smaller group level such as between members of government, or within families.

The concept of Buen Vivir has also spread due to a series of social processes. They include changes in our culture, institutions, systems, and ways that we learn to relate to each other. The influence of Buen Vivir is related to how as individuals we create and regularly reshape our social identities, and the differences we experience based on our social locations. It is also a response to environmental changes we are facing as we recognize that our lived experiences are integrally linked to the natural world.

Chapter 2 will introduce the ways that sociology explores and understands social changes like the shift toward Buen Vivir. We’ll begin with the tools, building blocks, and foundations that sociologists use to approach the study of social change. Then, we’ll describe the process and patterns of social change, with an emphasis on how social changes are experienced with diversity, based on our social locations and life chances. Finally, we’ll explore ways of viewing the connection between society and environmental changes.

In this chapter we’ll explore the following questions:

• What is the social structure of society as it relates to social change?
• How are the tools of social construction and sociological imagination applied to social change?
• What are the theoretical approaches to social change?
• What are the processes and patterns of social change?

• What are the implications of intersecting social locations – race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and colonized ancestry – for social change?
• How does sociology view environmental issues and changes as social topics?