BUEN VIVIR AND UBUNTU: THE INTERSECTIONALITY OF AFROPERSPECTIVES AND AMERINDIAN THOUGHT

Abstract

This article proposes a theoretically based study that projects the concept of Good Living and Ubuntu for Afro-Amerindian peoples in the field of Cultural Geography. It discusses the similarity of the perspectives of Afro and indigenous collective groups that will be the common thread for the proposal to expand the understanding of Good Living and Ubuntu with a focus on ancestral territoriality. The article seeks to answer the problem: how can Afro-diaspora and Amerindian thought contribute with their experiences of Good Living and Ubuntu to think about notions of territoriality? It uses a bibliographical review on the concept of Good Living and also Ubuntu, as well as authorial works, books, theses, and dissertations by African and indigenous authors who deal with their worldviews, with a focus on territorialities. It is possible that the hegemonic theoretical frameworks of Eurocentric Geography impede, to some extent, the possibility of thinking about other worldviews, because the first notions deal with only one type of human nature. The Anthropocene suffers from an epistemic crisis, as Afro-Amerindian peoples constantly occupy spaces for debate and project their philosophies in confronting the Western capitalist model and its epistemic borders based on variations in human nature. Such Western thinking has led the planet to metabolize nature into merchandise, reducing life on earth to a civilization model. The populations that inhabit Abya Yala, on the contrary, with some variation, have their relationships with their specialities historically based on the biointeraction of the human species with their natural environment and, therefore, define their ways of life in dialogue with the visible and invisible beings in a collaborative process, where Nature has its humanities, in the plural.