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Southern Anthropologist

Abstract

This essay explores the relationship between visions of the ideal society that emerge from social movements and local, small-scale socio-economic and cultural projects that might contribute to achieving these ideals. It discusses the concept of sumak kawsay, a term meaning “living well” in the Kichwa language, which has been used in Ecuador to refer to a holistic concept of well-being involving economic, environmental, and social factors. Sumak kawsay originally emerged in the discourse of Ecuador’s indigenous movements, and the country has incorporated the concept, along with its Spanish-language version of buen vivir, into its most recent constitution in 2008. Buen vivir has also been included in Bolivia’s 2009 Constitution. I contrast sumak kawsay with past development strategies and examine the case of the Waira Churi, a Kichwa music and dance group turned tourist and cultural center in the Amazonian region, whose experience with community tourism seems to exemplify the sumak kawsay ideal. I argue for greater consideration of small-scale indigenous collective economic projects and suggest that community-based tourism can play an important role in making sumak kawsay possible in indigenous communities.

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