Descolonizar o imaginário: oito propostas de bem viver

Abstract

Daily, we have news of environmental disasters caused by climate change. Since the Industrial Revolution, which began in the mid-eighteenth century, planet Earth has entered the historical period called the Anthropocene, mainly associated with excessive consumption, especially in developed countries, global warming and the exhaustion of the planetary ecosystem by human action. The present work, divided into two parts, investigates the beginning of this process, having as its key event the conquest of America, in 1492 (TODOROV, 2019; ARÁOZ, 2020). At first, we started from the idea that colonization establishes an extractive logic that is not only material, but also subjective, which persists to the present day. This “internal colonialism” (CUSICANQUI, 2010) establishes a unique thought that privileges an exclusive and destructive hegemonic mode of existence. In the second part, based on the concept of Bem Viver, a notion developed by the peoples of the Andean and Amazon region, we elaborate eight proposals for anthropological regeneration and resistance against the “monoculture of the mind” (SHIVA, 2003), capable of embracing the diversity of human practices and produce other worlds and modes of existence with universalizing (but not totalizing) and counter-hegemonic potential. We conclude that, yes, this is possible.Daily, we have news of environmental disasters caused by climate change. Since the Industrial Revolution, which began in the mid-eighteenth century, planet Earth has entered the historical period called the Anthropocene, mainly associated with excessive consumption, especially in developed countries, global warming and the exhaustion of the planetary ecosystem by human action. The present work, divided into two parts, investigates the beginning of this process, having as its key event the conquest of America, in 1492 (TODOROV, 2019; ARÁOZ, 2020). At first, we started from the idea that colonization establishes an extractive logic that is not only material, but also subjective, which persists to the present day. This “internal colonialism” (CUSICANQUI, 2010) establishes a unique thought that privileges an exclusive and destructive hegemonic mode of existence. In the second part, based on the concept of Bem Viver, a notion developed by the peoples of the Andean and Amazon region, we elaborate eight proposals for anthropological regeneration and resistance against the “monoculture of the mind” (SHIVA, 2003), capable of embracing the diversity of human practices and produce other worlds and modes of existence with universalizing (but not totalizing) and counter-hegemonic potential. We conclude that, yes, this is possible.