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[ PM LA
theories and
methodologies
The Indigenous
Andean Concept of
Kawsay , the Politics
Kawsay in Colonial and Postcolonial Borderlands
of Knowledge and
The personage of Huatya Curi, the "Baked Potato Gleaner," figured
Development, and prominently in an early colonial account of the landscape and re-
ligious mythology of the Andean people of Huarochiri, a province
the Borderlands
in the mountainous interior of Lima in the Viceroyalty of Peru. The
of Environmental Huarochiri manuscript, a sixteenth-century Quechua document, in-
troduces Huatya Curi with these words: "Chay pacha cay huatya curi
Sustainability in ñisca huacchalla micuspapas huatya cuspalla causaptinsi sutiachir-
Latin America can huatya curim ñispa . . 'At that time Huatya Curi, a poor potato
eater, was accustomed to living from gleaning baked potatoes, and
for that reason people named him Huatya Curi . . .' (Salomon and
Urioste 163; my trans.; see also Taylor 32-33). While poor, Huatya
KARL S. ZIMMERER Curi was powerful; in the same passage he goes on to vanquish a
mighty Andean lord, Tamta Ñamca. The demise of Tamta Ñamca
KARL S. ZIMMERER is professor in the De-
sets the stage for the ascendance of Paria Caca, Huatya Curi 's father,
who
partment of Geography and in the Earth emerges as the chief Andean deity. Huatya Curťs existence is
earthly
and Environmental Systems Institute at yet linked to his supernatural lineage.1
the Pennsylvania State University, Univer- Causaptinsi , translated above as "accustomed to living," derives
sity Park. His most recent books are from
The causay , a Quechua portmanteau word in early colonial Peru
New Geographies of Energy (Routledge,
whose spectrum of meanings extended well beyond the usage in the
2012) and Globalization and New Geog-
Huarochiri manuscript. The Jesuit missionary Diego Gonzalez Hol-
raphies of Conservation (U of Chicago P,
guin (1552-1618) listed no fewer than twenty-three variations in the
2006), and he has published more than
two dozen scholarly and popular articles
specific meaning of causay in his 1608 dictionary of Southern Pe-
ruvian Quechua, making it one of the most versatile of indigenous
during the past few years, on topics rang-
words
ing from sustainability and conservation ("Causay"). Based in the order's Cuzco headquarters and trav-
eling
to social justice, biodiversity, agriculture, in numerous Andean towns and villages, Gonzalez Holguin
and food (www.geog.psu.edu/people/
joined in the extensive cultural encounters among ecclesiastics, local
zimmerer-karl). His current work on agri-
officials of the Peruvian viceroyalty, indigenous people, and other el-
culture, land use, and food is coordinated
ements of colonial society. The meanings of causay ranged from ba-
with policies and projects on climate
sic connotations of existence and subsistence to appraisals of health
change, development, and human rights
being pursued by nongovernmental orga- well-being. Many causay- derived words were also detailed in
and
the
nizations, indigenous and peasant organi- pioneering Quechua lexicographic work of Domingo de Santo
zations, and Tomás (1499?-1568), another Jesuit working in the Andean cultural
governmental and university
institutions borderlands. During recent decades causay and other indigenous
in Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico.
600
^ © 2OI2 BY THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA j
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12 7-3 ] Karl S. Zimmerer 601
ft
By the
terms signifying "to live well" mid-1990s, kawsay
(especially vi- had become T
ft
vir bien , allin kawsay , and increasingly common in and
sumak kawsay) Andean studies and 0
sr
and have encouraged a pan-Latin
chua people amid American
rapid change in the Andean 0
&
perspective (Escobar; Salgado).
countries. Ethical or normative meaning was 0
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6o2 The Indigenous Andean Concept of Kawsay [ P M L A
</>
♦Ï Kawsay has remained common in every- rialism connoted by "the good life." Kawsay
w
o
day Quechua conversation, quotidian usage has been used to denote an indigenous alter-
o occurring extensively alongside the newer native to neoliberal governments and global-
«Ö
0 public expressions. The concerns of the lat- ization and to modern Western technology,
JC
<H ter expressions have ranged from indigenous economics, and politics. It was employed to
0)
E rights to sustainability and well-being to is- voice the unpopularity of previously predom-
"ü sues of plurinational citizenship and social- inant neoliberal approaches. Allin 'well' or
c
n ecological utopia, and the commonplace uses 'good' is commonly affixed as a prefix, form-
Ü also demonstrate a defining range of linguis- ing allin kawsay 'to live well.' For example, the
*Z
o tic versatility. Four principal meanings tend to Proyecto Andino de Technologías Campesi-
v
jc anchor the everyday use: "to live, to exist"; "to nas Andean Project of Peasant Technologies,'
4*«
mara use these everyday expressions (Walsh). Ecuador and Bolivia. Article 275 of the new
By the early 2000s kawsay and related Ecuadorian constitution, approved in 2008,
terms began to be deployed to signal in- guarantees citizens the right to sumak kaw-
digenous concepts of development and na- say , the Ecuadorian Quichua equivalent of
tionhood. By mid-decade kawsay became a allin kawsay (a term characteristic of Cuzco-
favored referent of mass indigenous move- Callao Quechua). Similarly, the new Bolivian
ments in the Andean countries- princi- constitution, written by the recently installed
pally Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru (Escobar; government of Evo Morales and approved in
Salgado). Indigenous groups and their sup- a national referendum in 2009, establishes
porters have framed visions of alternative or vivir bien as a goal integral to the country's
endogenous development and Andean nation- plurinational model of nineteen indigenous
hood by focusing on the concept of kawsay , ethnic groups and their territories. Consti-
frequently referred to in Spanish as vivir bien tutional meanings of sumak kawsay and vi-
and buen vivir in mainstream national dis- vir bien embody the values of social justice,
courses (Delgado, Rist, and Escobar). Kawsay inclusion, and equality. In addition, sumak
is translated into English as "living well" kawsay
or and other provisions of the Ecuador-
"well-living," contrasting the Western mate- ian constitution recognize nature as inde-
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12 7-3 ] Karl S. Zimmerer 603
pf
ally prevalent
these constitutions represent forms ideas.
andFor ob-
example, in a new 5T
</>
(De Marzo 159) - yet they are at odds with 1987 report on global sustainability ( Our 3
a variety of existing government policies. In Common Future) by the World Commission ft
i*
y
fact, the present-day governments continue on Environment and Development, known as 0
a
to pursue a wide range of contradictory po- the Brundtland Commission.2
litical, economic, and environmental policies 0"
dean countries. In recent works kawsay has thought, including many strands of environ-
been carefully defined as social justice, with mental studies and resource management. By
emphasis on normative attributes of inclusion contrast, central to the Andean worldview,
and equality (Gudynas 34), and as a quality or so-called cosmovision, is the Pachamama
of social movements representing collective (Madre Tierra , or Mother Earth), believed to
well-being (Escobar 21). Still, debate and con- be the essence and giver of all life, both natu-
tention infuse the ongoing interpretation. On ral and human-social. However, the precepts
the one hand, kawsay is cast hopefully and of kawsay and the Pachamama typically differ
with widespread public support as signaling from the predominant ideas of sustainability
a decolonial turn and a new paraeconomic as principally a global institutional challenge.
model of national development and coopera- Unsurprisingly, kawsay concepts refer only
tion in the Andean countries. On the other rarely to the definitions of global sustain-
hand, the concept coexists uneasily in the ability commonly advanced in international
continued amalgam of so-called neoliberal reports (e.g., the documents issuing from the
multiculturalism and environmentality (Rad- influential 1992 United Nations Conference
cliffe; Zimmerer, "'Conservation Booms'"). on Environment and Development in Rio de
Amid debate, the concerns of the environ-Janeiro, such as the sustainability action plan
ment and sustainability have become even prescribed in Agenda 21). Instead, kawsay is
more central to the growing popular usage a methodology or process in which human
lifestyles must continually be "harmonized
and interpretations of kawsay. The term has
recently been defined as connoting political
to the pacha " through quotidian customs of
ecology and global ecology (Salgado) and en-
reciprocity with nature, understood broadly
to encompass elements from food plants to
vironmental protection combined with social
solidarity (Avendaño). Such highlighting local
of climate (Proyecto Andino).
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6o4 The Indigenous Andean Concept of Kawsay [ P M L A
(A
Kawsay and the Pachamama conjure an ties and interlocutors (e.g., Jesuit missionaries
w>
o
ideal of nature as humanized landscapes of in the Viceroyalty of Peru), while later, in the
0 indigenous food-producing environments first half of the twentieth century, it conveyed
■Ö
0 and technologies, unlike the predominant meanings rooted partly in Peruvian indigeni-
JE
+-» Western ideal of nature as pristine wilder- sta anthropology, and late in the century it re-
E ness (Denevan). These Andean beliefs suggest flected interest in food and agroecology issues
■ü an incipient divergence from the biocentric and the rise of national indigenous political
c
f8
formulation of sumak kawsay recently incor- movements. Even PRATEC - the Peruvian
i/>
.£
porated into the Ecuadorian constitution (Gu- group that has effectively promoted kawsay
Z
o dynas; Salgado). Notwithstanding this recent and related concepts on indigenous agendas
«
xi shift, the historical continuity is noteworthy. during recent decades- must be seen as situ-
ated in a similar cultural borderland. This
«M
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12 7-3 ] Karl S. Zimmerer 605
ft
T
coreidealistic
vision building. Utopian and understanding of humanized land-
mean- 0
&
ings of kawsay and related scapes
terms thatare
has been integral to the meaning
enabling 0
sustainability.
forests, grasslands, seeds, water, andDoing so will require probing
livestock
in response to climate change (Ishizawa
the multiscale Oba, matrices of
power-knowledge
Rengifo, and Arrillas Traverso; Salgado).5
the linguistic terrain of kawsay in the cultural
and environmental borderlands - spatially
extensive and historically and morally condi-
Conclusion: Kawsay and the
tioned-of Andean peoples and their liveli-
Sustainability Borderlands
hoods, aspirations, and political movements.
Kawsay is a versatile, portmanteau con-
cept common in the linguistic borderlands
formed through the contacts of indigenous
Andean peoples and cultures with nonin-
Notes
digenous groups and interests. Kawsay and
similar expressions have likely been
1. Huatya deployed
Curi s contrasting origins were akin to those
of the Huarochiri manuscript itself, whose authorship, in
for many hundreds of years among the in-
1597 or shortly thereafter, is unknown though it was ap-
digenous inhabitants of the Central Andes
parently sponsored by Francisco de Ávila (1573-1647), a
between Colombia and Argentina. Cultural
well-known clerical persecutor or "extirpator of idolatries"
norms, social relations, and
of thethe
Peruvianagroecologi-
viceroyalty. Constructed as an investiga-
tive text rather than an anti-Andean polemic, the manu-
cal quality of produced and consumed goods
script reflects the early colonial encounters and emerging
(e.g., foodstuffs) have been invoked in a litany
hybridity of indigenous belief systems, as well as the cor-
of changing linguistic uses. Most
responding recently,
social and cultural complexity of places and
mass indigenous movementspeopleshave
in colonial used allin
Peru (Salomon and Urioste; Taylor).
kawsay , sumak kawsay , and2. suma
In this example,
qamañakawsay is claimed
to to contain mean-
ings built on the idea of cross-generational environmental
connote social and environmental goals in lo-
equity (De Marzo 157) articulated in the principal clause
cal communities and at the national political
of the Brundtland Commission report's definition of sus-
level in each of the Andean countries
tainability: (pri-
"Sustainable development is development that
marily Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia).
meets the needs of theTogether
present without compromising the
relational ontology to Utopian qualities suited or lo andino , especially in Peru (Apffel-Marglin and
PRATEC). While scholarship centered on lo andino was
to adaptive learning and capacity buildingsubject to trenchant critique among social scientists and
in the face of environmental, climatic, andhumanities specialists, PRATEC effectively reinvented
development changes. The incorporationthis idea within an indigenous activist agenda.
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6o6 The Indigenous Andean Concept of Kawsay [ PMLA
(A
4. For example, a//iw kawsay (vivir bien ) is the Ishizawa Oba, Jorge, Grimaldo Rengifo, and Nilda Ar-
♦Ï
M chief goal in the 2008-13 strategic plan of Bolivia's rillas Traverso. La crianza del clima en los Andes cen-
0 trales del Perú. Lima: PRATEC, 2010. Print.
Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas del Qullasuyu
Õ (CONAMAQ), which consists of sixteen indigenous na- Medina, Javier. Suma qamaña: Por una convivialidad
"0
0 tionalities and hundreds of communities. postindustrial. La Paz: Garza Azul, 2006. Print.
JE
«M 5. The role of kawsay as an ideal in national politics, es-
Mejia Xesspe, Manuel Toribio. "Kausay: Alimentación de
pecially through state-level policies and legal systems, in- los índios." Wira kocha: Revista peruana de estudios
E
vites comparison with uses of indigenous concepts outside antropológicos 1.1 (1931): 9-24. Print.
"ö
c the Andean countries. For example, ujamaa , a Swahili
Proyecto Andino de Technologías Campesinas, ed. Al-
a
word for extended family, was a conceptual foundation of lin kawsay: El bienestar en las concepciones andino-
m
♦ï so-called African socialism under the government of Ju- amazónicas. Lima: PRATEC, 2002. Print.
lius Nyerere in Tanzania between 1967 and 1985. RadcliíFe, Sarah. "Development for a Postneoliberal Era?
0
4)
Sumak Kawsay, Living Well and the Limits to Decolo-
X
■m
nization in Ecuador." Geoforum 43.2 (2012): 240-49.
Print.
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