Paper short abstract:

We look to cases from the highlands and the Amazon in which local governments and individuals invoke buen vivir in matters of environmental conservation, education, farmers’ markets, and maternal health. We explore how Ecuadorians have adopted, or ignored, buen vivir as a sign of valued civic life.

Paper long abstract:

In 2014, Ecuadorian economist and politician Fander Falconi tweeted "I suggest that upon greeting and saying goodbye Ecuadorians say 'buen vivir,'" inviting citizens to participate in the official discourse of the new development paradigm, one concerned with the democratization of public services and defined in contrast to neoliberal policies of previous decades. Although Falconi's suggestion has not yet transformed colloquial discourse, in this paper we propose that buen vivir has been increasingly appropriated by diverse actors (e.g. local leaders, organizations, individuals). This paper draws on ethnographic research that took place over multiple research seasons from 2012 to 2015 in Cangahua (Pichincha), Quilotoa (Cotopaxi), and Cuyabeno (Sucumbíos), using interviews and participant observation to document circumstances in which Ecuadorians re-claim ownership over how buen vivir might be defined. We observe particular invocations of buen vivir to align local economic activities with official development discourse and thus frame them as civic engagements, worthy of public recognition, as well as state support. Yet, at some sites of intense state intervention and investment, local leaders rarely mention buen vivir. Even as they pursue state-sanctioned development initiatives, community authorities take up alternative, conflicting discourses of pre-buen vivir interculturality and/or neo-liberal modernization. The proliferation of projects pursued under the banner of buen vivir speaks not only to the expansion of the state under the Citizen's Revolution, but also and more directly to the continuing, creative struggles of Ecuadorians themselves to be recognized as citizens in matters of environmental conservation, education, farmers' markets, and maternal health.