09 Dec 2023  |  Ruben Darío Chambi

From Suma Qamaña to Vivir Bien: A case study on the translation of an Aymara concept in Bolivia

Vivir Bien is a concept that is widely disseminated in Latin American politics and social sciences. It is presented as a philosophical contribution of Indigenous peoples that promotes principles such as complementarity with mother earth, reciprocity and community life. In recent years it has been positioned in various spheres as an alternative paradigm to the capitalist system and Western culture, which has influenced some progressive regimes in the region to incorporate it into their public policies, as well as in the agendas of various environmental development organisations.

However, a historical look at its origins shows that Vivir Bien (or Buen Vivir as it is known in Ecuador and Peru) has been translated and assembled from various Indigenous notions, one of which, in the Bolivian case, is Suma Qamaña, an Aymara concept conceived between the 1970s and 1980s by native thinkers who moved from rural areas to new urban settlements in the altiplano, most notably the city of El Alto. The exclusion they suffered from the urban society of the time and the influence of global struggles for decolonisation stimulated these thinkers to create concepts and symbols that challenged the state and society they considered colonial. Suma Qamaña was conceived as a perspective on wellbeing, a concept that would allow them to express their new economic, social and political aspirations in the face of a society that excluded them.

Based on a historical and ethnographic study, this paper aims to explore Suma Qamaña from a linguistic perspective and as an anti-colonial concept. It sets out to describe the complex process by which it was translated as Vivir Bien and to understand the processes by which it went from having an aspirational (in economic, social and political terms) and anti-colonial meaning to being a depoliticised and environmentalist concept. Suma Qamaña is an example of appropriation, alteration and resignification of Indigenous concepts by external actors, which over time has given way to multiple scenarios of disencounters, especially between official state policies and the current processes of Aymara re-emergence. These elements make it a pressing line of reflection in the field of language revitalisation and recovery.

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