The (De)construction of Capitalist-Colonial-Eurocentric Development: Perspectives in the Light of Buen Vivir

Abstract

The article proposes to reflect on the definition of development established by the capitalist model as a legacy of the Eurocentric colonial experience. Based on the worldview of indigenous peoples, it aims to understand this experience of communion with nature, which we call buen vivir. On the other hand, from a Eurocentric perspective, development is seen as material growth, that is, as a process that aims to expand the reproduction of capital at the expense of the devastation of peoples and nature. This developmentalist definition is marked by two factors: the degradation of nature and the erasure of indigenous peoples (in Eurocentric terms, primitive/non-modern), which occurs through the imposition of the need for unbridled exploitation of nature, in defiance of ancestral knowledge, as an indispensable requirement for the development of modern capitalist Society. We have thus organized the text into two topics: in the first, we will situate the context of Eurocentric capitalist development that imposes domination and degradation of nature and the erasure of native peoples in contrast to Brazilian legislation. Finally, in a second topic, we look at the need and the way to break with the Eurocentric vision of Eurocentric capitalist development, with a view to establishing a reading in the light of buen vivir, which runs counter to the current civilization project.