Abstract

LALANDER, Rickard  and  LENZA, Chiara. Transmodernity and Socio-Historical Time in the Decolonization Process of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. rev.estud.soc. [online]. 2018, n.65, pp.48-60. ISSN 0123-885X.  https://doi.org/10.7440/res65.2018.05.

This article analyzes how transmodernity has been expressed in the Plurinational State of Bolivia since 2009. It specifically focuses on the complexities involved in the reconstruction of the State and the road towards an intercultural society based on the constitutional acknowledgment of the values and praxis of plurinationality. This historic moment -with the reconstruction of the State and society based on the beliefs, traditions, epistemologies and ontologies of the indigenous peoples- symbolizes a particular social time and is the result of the silent survival of pre-colonial cultures which, over centuries, gradually transformed themselves alongside and in interaction with modernity, thus evolving into transmodern cultures. The establishment of the Plurinational State has also legitimized the indigenous ethical-philosophical concept of Suma Qamaña-Vivir Bien (“To Live Well”), which refers to a harmonious relationship between humans and Nature and is enshrined as a socio-political-cultural guideline and alternative to the logics of eurocentrism, anthropocentrism, individualism and capitalism. Methodologically, the study is based on years of ethnographic fieldwork in Bolivia and a critical reading of previous studies of such subjects.

Keywords : Bolivia; decolonization; Plurinational-Intercultural State; socio-historical time; transmodernity; Vivir Bien.

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