Buen Vivir is a criticism of what could be described as an ideology or cultural aspect of development. This paper will briefly touch upon the three different interpretations of the complex Latin American concept of Buen Vivir and then compare it to the European New Green Deal.
- 1) Generic use. Used as a label both to criticise contemporary development, and to support endeavours that progressive governments consider innovative. The clearest examples of this are different general criticisms of development plans where, over and above use of this label, the issues are classic. Or rather, the label is used almost as a slogan for endeavours like Bolivia’s housing programmes, the bus stops in Quito or the plastic social welfare card in Venezuela (cédula del Buen Vivir ), all of which are steps that, whilst they might be positive, do not reflect any essential alternative vis-à-vis contemporary development.
- 2) Restricted use. Is found in more specific criticisms of development, focused on contemporary capitalism, but where the alternatives are based on defending other types of development. The clearest example of this is to label as BV, criticisms of capitalism that advocate alternatives inspired by socialist tradition, or its use to describe the actions of current progressive governments, (the clearest case of this is the ‘republican biosocialism’ defended by some in Ecuador).
- 3)Substantive use. The BV is as much a criticism of conventional development as it is a proposal to move beyond this, and one which is made up of several strands, some of which can be qualified as “western” and other, very important ones, which respond to elements which originate from the knowledge of indigenous peoples.
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