Life alternatives: quotidian practices of Kayambi people

This doctoral project focuses on the praxis of life alternatives among Kayambi people, in Ecuador. Alternatives have been extensively discussed among scholars that aim to understand and change capitalism. The idea of sumak kawsay is one of these alternatives. Sumak Kawsay, often translated as buen vivir/good living, is an expression present in the Ecuadorian Constitution that is interpreted as an alternative to development, neoliberalism, and to modernity. In this project, I study how this expression is enacted in the quotidian of Kayambi people, contributing with an ethnographic account of the ways sumak kawsay is constituted as an alternative. This project assumes a decolonial perspective, considering alternatives already exist in the margins of the system. Relying on a total of eleven months of fieldwork, I describe how sumak kawsay emerges in the conviviality within the family, the community, the chakra (the garden ) and the Pachamama (the geo-biodiversity). Indeed, I reflect on the challenges and possibilities of doing alternative research, based on collaborations, with indigenous peoples.