ESSAY: THE GOOD LIFE LIVING IN RESPONSE OF TRANSFORMATION
In the worldview of indigenous societies in understanding the meaning it has and must have the lives of people there is no concept of development. That is, there is no concept of a linear process of life to set an earlier or later stage, namely sub-development and development; dichotomy why they should move people to achieve a desirable life, as in the Western world. Nor are there any concepts of wealth and poverty determined by the accumulation or lack of material goods.
But there is a holistic vision about what should be the goal or mission of every human effort, which is to find and create the material and spiritual conditions for building and maintaining the Kausai Sumac (good living), which is also defined as harmonious life.
Given the diversity of elements that are conditioned human actions that encourage Kausai sumak, like knowledge, codes of ethical and spiritual conduct in relation to the environment, human values, vision, among others, Kausai sumak concept is a central category in the philosophy of life of indigenous societies. Kausay seen so sumac is a category in permanent construction.
Therefore it is inappropriate and highly dangerous to apply in indigenous societies, the paradigm development as it is conceived in the West, even assuming that this concept far from the entelechy it is, resulting synonymous with welfare. Since sumak Kausai has increased at the sole satisfaction of needs and access to services and goods transcendence. In this context the view of life and good living, synthesized in the philosophical category of Sumak Kausai, can not be understood as an analogous concept to development.
The rigor of Kausai Alli is based on knowledge, which is the basic condition for the management of ecological and spiritual sustenance local bases and autonomous resolution needs. That involves the development of a coherent production systems adapted to the environmental conditions.
The knowledge passed down through generations in time to place individuals in a community in a fair condition in terms of capacity, expertise, identity and worldview, it also provides essential values for production processes independently and needs resolution, as solidarity and reciprocity, which is evident for example in the Minga.
Knowledge also includes the sphere of the transcendent or spiritual. There the indigenous view on the jungle world, where different forms of life are conceived as analogous to those beings, guided and protected by great spirits, with whom the man is destined to live together on the basis of ongoing dialogue is set. In this understanding, the jungle continent of sacred scenario becomes, for example: a large lake, a mountain, waterfalls, river depths, among others, are considered sacred scenes, being abodes of the protective spirits of the lives of Jungle.
In the context of this vision many forms of use or management of different scenarios and forest resources, such as agricultural planting rituals practiced exercised partnership agreements are for life, and that is set through dialogue in the spirit of the land. Human settlements, land use in several cases remain itinerant systems and are based on the maintenance and protection of agricultural biodiversity and forest, leading to a permanent recreation of such places, avoiding over-exploitation of resources and deterioration or contamination environmental. In this view, the forest and the earth strata that bind are physical spaces with the intangible, the material with the spiritual, whose mediator is the lifeblood person (yachac in Rune shimi). The social practice of this vision about life and the cosmos, is essential in the dynamics of the construction of Alli Kausai. In terms development and poverty is part of the strictly Western approach, to the point that it would seem that indigenous peoples have taken as their highest aspiration welfare understood as satisfaction of needs and access to goods and services, ie their fate is inevitably oriented to travel on the path traced by the West and that therefore its existence is debated in the dilemma of choosing the tradition and modernity. The introduction of the concept of development on indigenous peoples, slowly destroys the philosophy of Kausai there.