Communal Territories in Coastal Ecuador: Looking for Paths of Understanding between the Concept of Good Living and the Principle of Common Good

Abstract

Part of the native population of the Ecuadorian coast maintains extensive territories as common property, which resources use and manage collectively since colonial times. This common property is built around a way of life centered on the Commune, distinguished by participatory, deliberative and consensual behavior, as a political principle of social relationship. The Constitution of Ecuador (2008) guided by the philosophy of “Sumak Kawsay” or Good Living (BV) recognizes the Commune as an ancestral organization, including in the new framework of resource redistribution and cultural recognition. Paradoxically though the indigenous worldview is respected, and their common good, in practice plans for economic growth ignore the inviolable rights of communal lands and try to privatize the legal rights of Communes property. In this tension, the common good for the Good Life must adopt new forms of resistance to maintain its market linkages without losing their collective decision.