Abstract

SANTANA E., María Eugenia. Looking at buen vivir from within. Rev. pueblos front. digit. [online]. 2015, vol.10, n.19, pp.171-198. ISSN 1870-4115.  https://doi.org/10.22201/cimsur.18704115e.2015.19.50.

The point of departure of this reflection on good living/buen vivir lies in brief contributions regarding what this concept means. It presents two experiences based on empirical information collected by the author. The first one relates to work conducted in the last quarter of the twentieth century with indigenous communities of the Selva region, at the municipality called Las Margaritas, Chiapas. It attempts to explain how this notion of community life might have come about. This information is related to the indigenous cosmovision and the value of harmony. The second experience corresponds to more recent times in the Chiapas highlands. Using a group of women from Zinacantán as a sample, it explores the values of good living/buen vivir from the point of view of Tsotsil women. These women were invited to make a comparison between their way of life and that offered by a government development project. The final conclusions are based on these comparisons.

Keywords : good living/buen vivir; harmony; indigenous peoples.