Sumak Kawsay y Autodeterminación en la Amazonía. Planificación Y Autogestión Territorial de los Kichwa de Pastaza en Ecuador

The local knowledge and capacities of the Kichwa communities and families of Pastaza in the central Amazon of Ecuador, as well as the different peoples and nationalities of this country, have often been overlooked, both in the discourse of development and planning, as well as in the processes of environmental management and land use planning, and the cultural dimension has often been largely excluded. Despite the fact that the country recognized itself in its 2008 Constitution as an intercultural and plurinational state, traditional practices and knowledge of integrated territorial management are not part of any public policy cycle. Even in the 21st century, government continues to be ethnocentric and monocultural, completely ignoring the other epistemologies, knowledge and experiences of these ancestral peoples. Precisely, the concepts of Sumak Kawsay are linked to Sumak Allpa and the right to self-determination. To some extent, the experience gathered in this book shows how this perspective of life challenges the dominant vision anchored in the logic of extractive capitalism, which turns nature into raw material and merchandise. The approach to the Kichwa experience raises a central question: how would the hegemonic perspectives of territorial planning and management be modified if an intercultural perspective and relationship were incorporated? Sumak Kawsay and self-determination in the Amazon: planning and territorial self-management of the Kichwa of Pastaza in Ecuador seeks to answer this question, in a recent descriptive and historical approach, seeking to contribute to a better understanding of the meaning of the collective and territorial rights of the indigenous peoples of this part of the Amazon, revealing, incidentally, the central problems of Ecuador and its path as a dependent economic-social formation.