Upstream - Buen Vivir with Eduardo Gudynas

Episode Date: February 28, 2016

This interview is a conversation with Eduardo Gudynas, a leading scholar of Buen Vivir, a Latin American social movement to focus development on “the good life.” He is also the executive secretary of the Latin American Centre for Social Ecology in Uruguay and the author of 10 books and many academic articles. We spoke about the unique history of the Buen Vivir social movement, its introduction into the constitutions of several Latin American countries, and how it challenges not just development alternatives, but alternatives to development. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Welcome to an Upstream interview, which is part of the Economics for Transition project. I'm Della Duncan, and today I'm in conversation with Eduardo Gullines, a leading scholar on Buen Vivir, a social movement to focus development on the good life. He is also the executive secretary of the Latin American Center for Social Ecology in Uruguay and the author of 10 books and many articles. Welcome, Eduardo. Well, thank you very much. Can you tell us a little bit more about your background and what inspired you to do the

work that you do? Sure. I start with ecological issues and being part of the ecological movement in the south end of South America, in Uruguay, in the late 70s and in the early 80s. And we started to work mainly with wildlife conservation. But soon, very soon, we discovered that those issues, at least in our country, were closely related to social perspectives, social demands. So in the 80s, we were working on something that could be described as a mix between human ecology and social ecology. How would you describe the difference between human ecology and social ecology?

difference between human ecology and social ecology? Well, human ecology, at least the mainstream concept in English and in the North, is more related to human relationship with the environment, closely linked to ecological anthropology, for example. While social ecology was more related to social movements, there was at that time a strong influence of Murai Bukchin's social ecology perspective that has, let's say, a libertarian anarchist touch. So these two were easily related in our practice in the South, particularly by that time. Also, there were many endeavors, many experiments, many efforts on non-traditional education with grassroots movements that were called popular education or popular adult education. popular adult education, and also including some practices of participatory research that were very common in many Latin American countries and in some Asian countries like India, for example. Thank you. And your work focuses a lot on this concept of buen vivir, which is a Spanish word related to the concept of a good life or a good living. Can you talk a little bit about that word and what is the history of the concept? Yes, Buen Vivir is the Spanish word that is more or less related to the idea of a good living, welfare, all these concepts.

But there are very important differences. The first difference is that it's not focused on the individual. It's not an individualistic approach of what is a good living. Because in Buen Vivir, the good living is always the good living of persons within a good living, because in Buen Vivir the good living is always the good living of persons within a community. The second difference is that the definition and the concept of community is radically different from the definition in mainstream Western view, because those communities are not only human communities but also communities expanded to the ecosystems,

to nature, to animals, to plants. So these communities in the Buen Vivir sense are living communities where humans are just other members of these sets of living things. of these sets of living things. And the third component is that communities are always rooted to specific locations. Communities always have an address. There are no abstract concepts. So when we refer to buen vivir, it's the good living in communities that are ecologically expanded and are rooted in specific locations to specific landscapes.

So as you see, there are many striking, important and relevant differences with the common idea of the good life or the good living. or the good living. The Buen Vivir idea started more or less in the early 2000s, particularly in the Andean countries. There was very important work in the Peruvian regions of the Andean mountains in the late 90s.

But what is interesting is that these efforts of a different approach of Buen Vivir get in touch or were related to the political shifts, particularly in Ecuador and Bolivia. So they get their way to the new constitutions that were approved in these countries in the first decade of the present century. The other important thing is that Buen Vivir is not just an Aboriginal or indigenous concept. It's a mix. It's also a concept that includes radical components, a radical critique of Western origin. For example, there are two non-indigenous components on the Buen Vivir discussion. One is a more strong interest on feminists and gender issues.

on feminism and gender issues. And the other component is specific issues related to nature's rights, intrinsic values of nature. While the indigenous components include ideas like this expanded view of community, this idea that communities are always rooted to landscape, a different approach on time, time is not linear, and also a deep cultural critique on current understanding of what is to be an indigenous, of what is to be, what is traditional knowledge and the distinction between classical science and other form of knowledge or wisdom

that are not based on Western Cartesian science. My point is that also when we read it is very recent. This is an outcome of a recent discussion. Because it's very common that I read papers and I heard people here in the North saying, this is some sort of recovery of very old and then tradition. And this is not the case. This is a very present day discussion and mainly focusing on what to do in the next coming future. So what's the context in which it's emerging?

You mentioned all the different components, but why now? Why is it coming now? And maybe in what way is it a critique of our current economic system? Well, it's more than a critique on current economics. It's a critique of the basic economic system? Well, it's more than a critique on current economics. It's a critique of the basic roots, the basic concepts of development. And one of the reasons is while here, for example, in Europe, you have a shift to conservative movements.

In South America, now we have different sets of governments with different political ideological positions from classical conservative governments to the new left progressivist governments so from the point of view the grassroots, all these governments, all these experiments, either from the new left or the old conservative, they all follow development. Of course, they follow development with different strategies, and perhaps the progressivist new left strategy is better in some aspects, because you could reach better standard of living for material things for a majority of people. But at the end, for local communities, this means, again, poverty, environmental impacts, the invention of their lands, territorial disputes, and so on.

So at the end, for example, one of the stories now i have in mind is to be in the ecuadorian amazonian rainforest discussing these issues with local groups most of them indigenous groups and they say for me is the same that the oil company headquarters is in london that is the brazil state oil company, because both of them are producing strong environmental impacts and both of them are destroying our communities. So social movements land very fast with very sad and

strong lessons that development although different although maybe based in different ideological political discourses at the end have the same roots in the invasion of their territories in inequality and so on Buen Vivir was a radical critique on development in all of these varieties. And what's kind of the larger idea of development and why this is important? And why Latin America in particular? A little bit about the history of development in general. In Latin America. particular? A little bit about the history of development in general. In Latin America. And the term.

But Bella, that will be one hour. Okay. You must attend the workshop. Yes. Well, you talked about, well, what about, yeah, so we said Latin America. What about the context of Latin America, though, just particularly Latin America? Maybe what was the birth of Buen Vivir? Why did it, where did that phrase were also able to mix, to work with, to have a dialogue with social movements like environmentalist, feminist groups and so on. groups and so on. And particularly in the early 2000s, there was a political turnover. So people were eager to discuss these issues and they found a path to introduce these issues in the political debate at large scale. So this resulted that the Buen Vivir ideas were different, but the Buen Vivir ideas are now in the new constitutions

of both Bolivia and Ecuador. But this was not the case in Peru, for example. What do you think was the difference between those three countries? Because in Peru there was no political shift around new left government. So what about, what would, you mentioned that it's in the constitution of those two countries, but what would an economy that did fully adopt

the Buen Vivir concept? What would that look and feel like? What would be just a few examples of the differences that we would see in that economy? Well, the Buen Vivir perhaps will not address that issue thinking in economy and will not use that concept, no? Because as I said earlier, it's expressed a reaction against development but it do has proposals and transitions to new arrangements that you

may describe these new arrangements as economies first is to recover different arrangements of what we call markets, but which will be not only based on monetary exchange interactions, but also to recover other non-monetary aspects of markets and of social living. For example, a very strong component of that in the Andean region, but also in the old Spaniard tradition in other countries in South America, is reciprocity. And you may have, just in the near past, you will find reciprocity even in the neighborhoods, Just in the near past, you will find reciprocity even in the neighborhoods, in the big cities, where people help a family that needs, for example, some help to repair their houses and so on. So to recover all these components, all these behaviors, all these attitudes. Also to move beyond.

I need your help with the English you can debate financial economy how do you pronounce that? financial economy, like the financial business sector and in that when we build alternative to economy the financial sector will be very very small

and in fact markets will be under social regulation. But the particular situation with the Buen Vivir is that we ask for a social regulation not only for the market, but also for the state. Because we have many examples, for example, of state-owned companies that perform so bad as the private companies in terms of social and environmental responsibility. Also, the Bonneville non-economic approach will delink strategies for well-being from

the profit objective that is one of the basic core ideas of current economics. Also, the Buen Vivir transitions to economy is based more on quality of life than in material position of things. So, on one hand, we hope that these new economies will give you a better quality of life, but it will be more frugal. But these economies will be more frugal. Going back to the idea, though, that you said about bringing back reciprocity in neighborhoods, when you say that, the kind of one thing that comes to mind is you're not saying that they would be monetized, that they're trying to monetize helping.

Because I'm seeing that with the sharing economy, is it's monetizing people helping each other give a ride or let someone stay. So how would Buen Viver, because I'm assuming you don't mean it would monetize that, how would it bring back this reciprocity? Like, what would be the mechanism in which it would encourage that? Well, we have mechanisms from everyday life so as to help people. We have also reciprocity in the terms that we can exchange goods and services in these non-monetary markets.

But also we think that we may have some room and there are good experiments for alternative currencies at different scales. For example, we can have something like a local currency that could be used in a region, but perhaps we will need a national currency, but for other purposes when you think on how to handle the whole country economy. And also there was an experiment in South America to have something like a parallel regional continental currency only

for trade within the South American countries. So in one in some of the models that are now being under discussion, you will have that under the one be viewed economies. You will have these three levels of different currencies linked together the local ones that gives no place for the financial sector national ones for the some national components that you need to handle in the economy of each country and also continental ones for trade between countries. Because trade between countries is also important in the one-be-beer approach.

And it may sound strange here in Europe, but I will explain. The main reason is an ecological reason, because different bioregions in South America have different potentials for providing food, goods with less environmental impact. environmental impacts on our natural resources, on our nature, is to use those resources that are produced with the less impact and share and exchange with resources and services that are found in other regions. So there is a room for continental trade under the Warrant Bidiru. So you mentioned that in the Bolivian and Ecuadorian constitutions there were revisions that were inspired by Buen Vivir and the Ecuadorian constitution now reads

we hereby decide to build a new form of public coexistence in diversity and in harmony with nature to achieve the good way of living. Okay, that's a very important outcome. And that opens the door and that resulted in a new set of problems that we're facing in South America because the Buen Vivir was so successful in the terms that so many people were eager to ask for Buen Vivir and they promote a new thinking about development to move away beyond development, that governments react

and start to look for ways to produce new versions of Buen Vivir that could be fit inside traditional development. And that is a discussion mainly with the left governments, because traditional progressives, left governments in South America, like the ones in Ecuador and Bolivia, they also want development. Of course, they will follow a different strategy, but they want development, for example, to export oil or to increase the agriculture sector.

So, that resulted in a large, heated and intense discussion of different versions of Wembley beer that includes on one side the original versions that express a radical shift from development, a new version that wants to include Buen Vivir as a new strategy within capitalist development, or a new variety within socialist development. So what has been the effect then in Bolivia and Ecuador?

How has this new addition to the constitution, how have you seen it play out? Well, the result depends on your social perspective and your ecological perspective. For those that are engaged still inside the box of development, they will argue that the result is very good because, as in other South American countries, both Ecuador and Bolivia have reduced poverty. But they have done so at the cost of a very intense environmental impact, particularly, for example, in the case case of Ecuador in the invasion of rainforests

by oil companies and pollution of water sources in the Amazonian rainforests due to oil companies. But if you follow the original Buenaventura perspective that was a critique to development, or you work with the grassroots communities, either in the highlands or either in the lowlands of tropical forests, well, the government version is a new makeup for all development.

What would you say is the root problem with development, as in the old way? Like the root, is it greed? Is it power? What would you say is the root issue that Buen Viver is trying to address? Well, I think that development is more the expression of a particularly way of thinking, a modern way of thinking, that delinks society from nature, that believes in progress, that believes that the well-being is closely related to material goods and material possessions. material goods and material possessions. So perhaps at this stage we are also considering that development is more the expression of a deeper cultural and perhaps even deeper than just culture

trend in present day. So development perhaps should be understood as the new world to replace the old concept of progress, for example. Thank you. So it seems like the movement can be both seen as personal as well as political, because I can see individual things that one can do, and as well as, like you said, community and political. Can you talk about the Intersections between those like is it purely political? Yes. Yes. It's always

Personal because you can do many things and of course We all would like to do more things, but we are trapped in a traditional consumption Market We are trapped in a traditional consumption market. It's also political because there is a political discussion of different strategies. For example, export strategies, trade partnerships, economic regulation at the countries. But I think both of them are also an expression of the result, a cultural shift, a cultural battle against these two worldviews. One more focus on quality of life and the respect of nature. And the other more focus on the idea that humans have the power, the rights to use natural resources and to progress and to handle economic growth forever.

So there is also at the end a cultural dispute that is going on in all these countries. One of the examples is, well, you have a reduction of poverty in all South American countries due to the very strong economic growth in the last 10 to 15 years. One of the surprising outcomes, even in the new left government, is a massive jump of classical consumption. So if you visit now the very big cities in South America, even in formerly very poor countries like Bolivia, you will find huge and large shopping malls quite similar to those that you will find, for example, in the UK or any other European city. And if you look in the shelves inside those shopping malls, you will find that most of the goods there came from China or other Southeast Asian countries, that in fact we are importing those goods in exchange of the natural resources

like minerals, oil, and food that we are sending to South Asia, for example. When you look at the Buen Vivir movement, kind of when you zoom out and you look at the movement, where would you say it is in its lifespan? Like, is it at its birth? Is it taking off? At the Like, is it at its birth? Is it taking off? At the birth. It's at the birth. Yes.

You have to think of Buen Vivir as a very abstract and upper in the category, like to be discussing about freedom or democracy. It's in the very early stages, and we are discussing what is Buen Vivir, what is not Buen Vivir. And because this requires a quite different point of view, it's not so easy to grasp the idea in a few words or in a few minutes. It's something similar to be in the time of the French Revolution, where you have a set of crazy people thinking, speaking,

and dealing with universal human rights. So it's a hard concept to describe, like you said. Because it requires a different point of view, a different worldview, a different vision. Even more than a paradigm. Even more than a paradigm. Even more than a paradigm. Yes. Do you, in your own life, do you ever feel like you know when you're doing something that's Buen Vivir? Like, do you do something and say, okay, that was Buen Vivir? Sometimes, yes. But usually in my life, I live in the tensions that I would like to do more things, but I am not able to do it.

Yeah. Because I live in a city. I have to, for example, in the weekends, I have to take the car to go to the street market, but I have to take the car because it's impossible to go to the street market in the bus and so on. So there's Buen Vivir intentions, but if the systems don't change, then you can't fully live a Buen Vivir life. But there is a discussion that is now quite different, strikingly different from the discussion that we had 10 or 15 years ago.

And also the reaction of the governments, the reaction of the academy, shows the powerful of this idea, because this is one of the main reasons why the governments, the traditional political parties, they want to pick up the word, to pick the concept, and produce a new version. So in the 1980s, there was a South American response to neoliberal development initiatives that was called the Solidarity Economy, which really looked a lot at having collective workplaces and also workplaces for social good. How does Buen Viver connect to that idea of the Solidarity Economy? idea of the solidarity economy? Well, I think that Bonneville goes far beyond the solidarity movement of that version of solidarity economy by that time, and also requires and is provoking a strong debate between social economy. For example, Bonneville, one of the key issues is to acknowledge that nature has rights. All these environmental issues are absent from the traditional discussion of social economy.

Let's talk a little bit about the work that you do in the Latin American Center for Social Ecology. What does that center do and what is the work that you do in the Latin American Center for Social Ecology. What does that center do, and what is the work that you do? Well, we work in South American countries, in most of them, in the last 25 years. And we work on research, but not the classical research. but not the classical research. It's more a participatory research together with social groups and NGOs. Also, we work quite hard on information analysis. That means to follow major trends in the continent and in global processes that affect South America and share the result of our analysis with social movements and NGOs and our partners

covers a wide spectrum and what side of interest in countries, this may be women's networks that works, for example, with agriculture. In other countries, we work with organic farmers' federations. In other countries, our main partners are scholar groups in universities. are scholar groups in universities. We also have a strong presence in the press. Most members of the centers publish short articles, opinions, and editorials in different South American newspapers and journals. And we also take part of some campaigns, particularly in the last year, we have been very active in campaigns against oil drilling in tropical forests and campaigning

about climate change and the responsibility of the South American government dealing with climate change. Do you ever struggle with the challenge of doing academic research and working with universities and writing articles and then talking to maybe people who don't read those publications or people and maybe who… No, not at all, because most of our work is for that people. So our secondary side effect is to produce from time to time the scholar papers

for the academic journals. It's not our main focus. In fact, we produce those papers, and those papers in English, In fact, we produce those papers and those papers in English answering the request of people that is within the academic system. Okay. So, Buen Vivir is an attempt to show the world that there are alternatives to current development models. But, you know, is this, do you believe that this transition is possible? Yes. Do you believe that this transition is possible? Yes.

One of the interesting things about the Bon Vivir discussion also in South America is that we are all more or less convinced that Bon Vivir is a very good cultural worldview, cosmovision shift. So now the discussion is, which are the transitions for that change? And why we use the concept of transition because we acknowledge that most people still live within the traditional way of living and we also acknowledge that we need answers for millions of people if we present an alternative, for example, economic system. I think in that realm there is a need for a self-critical evaluation of most social movements, both in the South and in the North,

because many of their proposals are very good in the broad ideas, in a very abstract and long-term conceptual approach. But they are not very good on how I will reach that situation, particular thinking in very big cities. For example, which will be the transition for a city like Sao Paulo in Brazil with 14 million people? How will you fill them? Will you be able to feed them with organic food? Where will you get the organic food for 14 million people? Their energy needs, how you will achieve energy needs for these very huge cities in the different countries in the continent.

So the transition discussion in South America moves from the local initiatives to national and continental initiatives. How these transitions will provide enough employment, how these transitions will permit that economies change to quite different strategies, but in time, which are the steps to change the economies, which are the necessary actions that we must take to protect nature now and to reduce our responsibilities with climate change, which kind of foods we can provide to this large amount of people without destroying nature, and so on. So the transitional discussion in South America is different from the transitional town discussion here in the United Kingdom, because the transitional discussion there in the South is the discussion

of how these transitions will run for countries and even for the continent. And here it's more local. Here it's more local. In our case, we use the local examples on how the cult inspired and which will be good enough to be replicated at the national level, for example. So they're models.

Yes. No, they are not only models, but they are also quite and very important because they show that the alternative is possible. Are there some towns or cities that one could visit or look at? No, not yet. On the way. Do you see yourself as part of a larger global movement for the new economy? No.

No. It's very specific to Latin America. Yes. Okay. Because that is rooted. Buen Vivir is rooted to a specific ecological and cultural context. So if you start to speak of Buen Vivir in a global sense, that will violate some of the basic ideas of one vivir. You cannot transplant. Yeah, or translate. Translate, but no, transplant. Oh, yeah, transplant. Transplant, you cannot transplant a very specific discussion

from one country to another country with a different culture, a different economic, political situation and so on. But it seems like there are common themes or there are things that are universal or would be helpful forever. Of course, yes. But there is also a danger because there is a very danger.

We may end, for example, that the United Nations will have as they have now, the United Nations Human Development Index. They will produce something like the Buen Vivir United Nations Blueprint from Buen Vivir or the Buen Vivir Development Index. So, and you're saying the danger in that is that um is that it's well like in ecology it's important to have diversity and so diversity and strategies coming from the place so maybe this global new economy has all these different initiatives and different things which may have themes like we're saying but look very different in different places based on the people, the culture, the history, and all of that.

Yes. Wow. Well, thank you. Last question. What are the leadership qualities that you have that make the work that you do possible? No, no, no. I have no leadership. You absolutely do. You're able to engage with people.

You're able to teach. You're able to bring in people into the conversation. Okay. Thank you very much, Paddy. Well, thank you. You've been listening to an Upstream interview, which is part of the Economics for Transition project. To find out more, visit economicsfortransition.org. I'm Della Duncan, and today we've been speaking with Eduardo Guzines, a leading scholar on Buen Vivir and the executive secretary of the Latin American Center for Social Ecology in Uruguay. To find out more about him and the work that he does, you can visit www.ambiental.net, A-M-B-I-E-N-T-A-L.

And you can also follow him on Twitter at at sign E. Guadines, G-U-D-Y-N-A-S. Thank you for joining me. Thank you. You've been listening to an Upstream interview, which is part of the Economics for Transition project. To listen to more interviews and episodes, please visit economicsfortransition.org.