O Bem Viver: uma análise sociológica e jurídica do Sumak Kawsay

Abstract

This work aims to reflect on new alternatives for the legal imaginary through the study of Buen Vivir (Sumak Kawsay/ Sumã Qamaña), a form of experience that emerged in the epistemological roots of Latin America (ACOSTA, 2018). For this, the main characteristics of European Law are analyzed, based on Legal Monism, namely: unitary, centralized and statist legal culture, which was developed under the bias of coloniality (MIGNOLO, 2017). Therefore, through a bias that seeks to consider other possibilities for legal cultures around the world, a decolonial perspective is used in order to distance the domination of the European episteme over the subalternized Latin American peoples. In this direction, the analysis considers the socio-biocentric perspective of Buen Vivir as a viable and counter-hegemonic opportunity to see the world, which is made possible by a new culture in Law: the community-participatory Legal Pluralism (WOLKMER, 2015). The viability of Buen Vivir is proven by the Latin American constitutional experiences of Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009), which give Buen Viver the force of a constitutional principle, in a movement of undoing the historical-structural knots of coloniality and valuing the indigenous epistemology, exalting the identity and autonomy of subaltern peoples.