Transnational Institute | Pachakuti: Indigenous perspectives, degrowth and ecosocialism - 0 views
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To enter this dialogue with respect, we need an introduction to this movement, which some call the “Pachakuti”, a term taken from the Quechua “pacha”, meaning time and space or the world, and “kuti”, meaning upheaval or revolution.[1] Put together, Pachakuti can be interpreted to symbolize a re-balancing of the world through a tumultuous turn of events that could be a catastrophe or a renovation.[2] The main form that this indigenous perspective seems to be taking is the presentation of a “model” called “Live well, but not better”: Vivir Bien or Buen Vivir in Spanish, Sumak Kawsay in Quechua and Suma Qamaña in Aymara.
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We have depleted some three hundred million years of accumulated solar energy flows in the form of plant based fossil fuel stocks in less than 300 years of the industrial era. Indigenous culture and knowledge of and respect for planetary flows and cycles could be crucial to our survival. This does not mean a return to the cave as some have argued. Democratically negotiated syntheses with elements of western knowledge and science can complement indigenous knowledge in new pluralist paradigms which stop destructive western over consumption and accumulation while redistributing sustainable “income” to the heretofore exploited global south.[7]
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However, convincing northern consumers of the need for a new paradigm and new lifestyles, given the impossibility of endless growth on a limited planet, will not be an easy task.[8] A synthesis, of elements of sometimes overly holistic indigenous wisdom and of excessively compartmentalized western science, seems to me the a fruitful combination to provide guidance for a way out of the current crises which threaten the planet, our Mother Earth.
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In its efforts to exert some political influence on solutions to the current world financial and climate crises the nascent international ecosocialist movement should direct some attention to a synthesis of the western ecosocialist discourse with the growing Latin American indigenous discourse that is making exciting progress, albeit in fits and starts, toward an international charter for the protection of the planet, Mother Earth, and all forms of life on it.