In 2008, the Ecuadorian Constitution defined the concept of Buen Vivir or Sumak Kawsay as a central principle of the state. In 2009, the Bolivian Constitution did the same with the similar idea of Vivir Bien or Suma Qamaña. With this, the notion of Good Life (also translated as Living Well) was established as an alternative to growth, development, and capitalism. In state politics, Good Life is presented as a traditional indigenous concept (as evidenced by the usage of the indigenous languages Kichwa and Aymara), mostly referring to millennial customs that usually are not concretely explained. That is one reason why many see Good Life as an “empty” concept that refers to everything that is not part of capitalism.
Nevertheless, Good Life is not an empty concept. It has a considerable grounding within the discourse of the indigenous movements in Latin America, particularly in Ecuador. Good Life first appeared in the context of a series of seminars in Bolivia in 2000, organized, amongst others, by the German Society for technical cooperation (GTZ). Those seminars were designed to discuss cultural backgrounds and implications of poverty. In this context, Aymara intellectuals with a background in the radical Indianist movement of Katarism, most notably Simón Yampara and Javier Medina, proposed Suma Qamaña as the ideal of living well opposed to the occidental ideal of living better. This construction is based on Andean cosmovision, and above all, reciprocity and interconnectedness. Both the indigenous intellectuals and the GTZ started to spread these new ideas with a series of publications and seminars.
They were adopted in Ecuador quickly. A journalist and Kichwa from the Amazonian village Sarayacu, Carlos Viteri Gualinga translated Suma Qamaña into Kichwa. In a text published in 2002, he explores the conceptions of development of the indigenous peoples of the Ecuadorian Amazon. He concludes that these people do not have a conception of development and growth like Western cultures do, but rather they orient themselves in the ideal of Allí Kawsay, the Good Life in harmony with each other and nature. This way of life is transmitted through wise persons, elderly and women of the different indigenous villages, and communities and is based on the teachings of the ancient Gods. That same year, economist Alberto Acosta cited the notion of Good Life as Viteri described it as a possible alternative to capitalist development.
Shortly after, the indigenous movement in Ecuador itself started to think about the concept of Good Life. A local organization in Sarayacu issued a manifesto in order to defend their territory against petroleum exploitation, in which they referenced indigenous gods and local traditions that would be violated by petroleum exploitation. This time, the concept was named Sumak Kawsay. With its demands for autonomy and self-determination within a plurinational state, Sumak Kawsay is rooted deeply within the indigenous movement. Here, Good Life is a radically local concept that makes sense in relation to the local communities, traditions, and experiences. In 2003, the concept of Good Life was used as an alternative to development by the state agency for indigenous development CODENPE, at that time under control by the indigenous organizations. The next year, Good Life appeared as a central principle of the indigenous Intercultural University Amawtay Wasi . In their founding document, they said that the education they wanted to provide was one focused around an encounter with Good Life, that is, life in harmony with the other human beings and nature. The university aimed to establish a close connection to rural indigenous communities and indigenous wise men and women. Sadly, the University was closed down in late 2013, supposedly because of a lack of academic quality, according to a state institution.
After 2004, there are virtually no texts defining what Good Life could be until the rise of nowadays government party Alianza PAÍS in 2005. Alberto Acosta was a founding member, responsible for the inclusion of Good Life in the first government program and in state politics. The result was increased discussion about Good Life in the Constituent Assembly of 2007/2008, where the indigenous movement was still working with the government in order to integrate Good Life into the constitution. It was only after the acceptance of the new constitution that discursive fights over the definition of Good Life arose. The State has taken on an important role in defining and applying the concept of Good Life. The State planning institution, SENPLADES , at the center of these efforts, drafted three plans for national development , the latest being from 2013 to 2017. In these plans, Good Life is mainly conceptualized in terms of economic renewal and not in terms of harmony between individual, society and nature.
The indigenous movement presents its definition of Good Life as a concept rooted within their discourse, with heavy connections with other concepts such as indigenous nationalities, the understanding of the indigenous peoples as social groups with the right and capability to live in a self-determined way, and plurinationality, a reorganization of State and society that allows for participation and autonomy for those indigenous nationalities. The government, on the other hand, uses the concept of Good Life for their idea of an economic transformation—a transformation that resembles in many ways the substitution of imports of early CEPALismo in the 1960s and 1970s. As the indigenous movement argues, this economic transformation is an alternative within development rather than an alternative to development