“All over the world, environmental justice movements are challenging growth-oriented development and neoliberal capitalism.
“But critique is not enough: we need our own narratives. Deconstructing development opens up the door for a multiplicity of new and old notions and world views. This includes buen vivir (or sumak kawsay or suma qamaña), a culture of life with different names and varieties emerging from indigenous peoples in various regions of South America; ubuntu, with its emphasis on human mutuality (“I am because we are”) in South Africa; radical ecological democracy or ecological swaraj, with a focus on self-reliance and self-governance, in India; and degrowth, the hypothesis that we can live better with less and in common, in western countries.
“These worldviews differ sharply from today’s notion of development, challenging the dogmatic belief in economic growth and proposing in its place notions of wellbeing. They are internally diverse, but they express common fundamental values, including solidarity, harmony, diversity and oneness within nature.”
Read the full story by Ashish Kothari, Federico Demaria and Alberto Acosta….
Post a Comment