Sumak Kawsay

Between Western Post-development and Andean Philosophy

Abstract

Objective: this review article suggests a state of the art approach to the philosophical, ethical, and phenomenological conception of the Sumak Kawsay concept in Kichwa Ecuadorian language in order to shed light on the dark areas in the contemporary discussion of the said concept.

Method: a qualitative content analysis was carried out to group and systematize roughly 120 academic articles, book chapters, master's theses, and doctoral theses on the Sumak Kawsay concept from 2008 to 2018.

Results: seven macro ways to interpret the Sumak Kawsay concept were identified, namely: a) as a way of life; b) as a post utopia; c) as an input of the Good-Living; d) as a neoextractivisim experiment; e) as an Andean Philosophy issue; f) as a political discursive construction; and g) as a decolonial device.

Conclusions: the Sumak Kawsay concept has positioned itself in the national and international intelligentsia discourse as well as in the Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement discourse; particularly as a political, cultural, and decolonial project that can and must be achieved. The Sumak Kawsay interpretation as a way of life and is perhaps the most important one since it connects the Westernist interpretations with the ones of the culturalism style.