Summary
uen Vivir, a political paradigm at work in Bolivia and Ecuador that underpins thestate and social regeneration after a prolonged and devastating period of neoliberalism,has become a hotly contested subject within academia and politics. Although it hasbeen categorized as decolonial, post-neoliberal, and post-developmentalist, recent devel-opments suggest that the Ecuadorian government is turning toward a highly extractivist and modernist model based on bureaucratic and technocratic logics. This article focuseson the debate spurred around Buen Vivir, arguing that it has been employed as acultural representation by many academics, politicians, and social agents, thus fore-closing the possibility of engaging in more grounded and pragmatic discussions and hindering the articulation of alternative political configurations. Accordingly, it seeks toshift the debate from epistemological questions about the conditions of knowledge tothinking the nature of the world ontologically from the perspective of Buen Vivir.
Keywords
Buen Vivir. Sumak Kawsay. Ecuador. Common. Ideology. Knowledge.