Buen vivir, Coloniality, human rights, Indigenous knowledge, Modernity
The concepts of living well, of the indigenous peoples, and of quilombo teachings, born out of the resistance of the black peoples, afford lived experiences and organizations that are distinct from the colonial and capitalist modernity. Both challenge the logic underlying modern exploitation by proposing new forms of coexistence that are based on ecological harmony and collectiveness. This article explores how these two traditions, originating in different contexts, converge by ‘re-signifying’ the relation between human beings and nature and by promoting more just, sustainable, and inclusive societies, all the while keeping alive teachings and practices that transcend the colonial logic.
Ana Carolina Pasolini Gonring is a law student at the Faculdade de Direito de Vitória (FDV), Brazil.
Abraham Hand Vargas Mencer is pursuing a doctor’s degree in Fundamental Rights and Guarantees at the Faculty of Law of Vitória, Brazil.
ABSTRACT
Colonialism and coloniality are underpinned by race, their victims being mostly black peoples – displaced from Africa by the slave trade – and indigenous peoples – exterminated and subjugated by the colonizers. Yet these peoples were not acculturated; rather, during the resistance process, they transformed their cultures into new ways of living in order to survive colonial violence, each people according to their own ways. Accordingly, this article seeks to answer how the teachings and knowledge produced by the black quilombo and the living well of indigenous peoples interrelate as precolonial forms of knowledge that were reinvented during colonialism and coloniality. For that, first this article reviews, by approaching the creation of the social category “race” by colonial modernity, the dualism and the myth of European self-emancipation, the founding principles of the coloniality of power and the legitimizers of the process designed to erase black and indigenous cultures and peoples. Then we show how the living well view shared by different Abya Yala peoples was kept and transformed by the peoples turned into indigenous during the coloniality of power. Next, we seek to explain how the Bantu peoples of the African continent, renamed as blacks in Latin America, rebuilt the practices of the quilombo in face of slavery and generated new knowledge and sociopolitical perspectives, synthesized in the categories quilombismo, quilombagem, and quilombolismo. Lastly, we compare the main characteristics of the two decolonial perspectives produced before and after colonialism by the first “Others” of modernity. This way we bring together the indigenous peoples’ perspective of living well and the teachings produced by the black peoples in the quilombos in the colonized Latin American territory. Our theoretical framework builds on the considerations of Aníbal Quijano (; ) and Enrique Dussel () for explaining the creation of the category race by colonial modernity. As regards the category living well, in addition to Quijano (), we also use the articles by José Luiz Quadros de Magalhães and Heleno Florindo da Silva (), Alberto Acosta (), and José Guillermo Díaz-Muñoz (). Lastly, with respect to the form of organization of the quilombos, in addition to their teachings and legacy to the present days, the authors referred to are Beatriz Nascimento (), Clóvis Moura (), Abdias Nascimento (), and Fárfan-Santos (). This way, not only are the thoughts socially produced by the Others of modernitycontextualized, but also hermeneutical similarities with the present days are presented, in a process of uncovering teachings, and of recollection and consideration toward the construction of the future present.
1. Coloniality in face of black and indigenous peoples
In the late fifteenth century, the expulsion of the Semites from the Iberian Peninsula, the Christianization of the region, the revival of classical philosophy by Renaissance, and the invasion of the Americas brought about the birth of modernity (Dussel, ), a system of “European” thoughts and practices that redefined, globally, the roles played by human beings among and between themselves and with nature.
Upon meeting the resident of Abya Yala (America), who had other teachings, spirituality, and lived experiences, the colonizer created modernity based on binary and totalizing racial classifications (Quijano, ). The human beings were divided into white and indigenous – the Other who was assumed to hold a homogeneous culture over the entire territory. The colonizer was rational, with a reborn philosophy, as opposed to the emotional-irrational indigenous individual. The whites had achieved progress as attested by complex institutions; the indigenous peoples were tribal and primitive.
This classification was also imposed on the Africans as from the sixteenth century on (Quijano, ) and on nature, a category now dissociated from the human being and subjected to the colonizer’s wills (Quijano, ; Acosta, ). In these dualities, the whites reinvented their identity and created a homogeneous and evolving history, based on a “European” identity that was nonexistent in the practices of the then fragmented continent, and built on Greek philosophy, Roman institutions, and Christian religion (Dussel, ).
There also was the myth of self-emancipation taking place from the Middle Ages to modernity. This would assign the European colonizer the role of savior of the “Other”, those who had to give up their whole identity and submit to the will and practices of the colonizer to achieve the same progress. The European colonizer adopted a dialectical conquering attitude: denial of the Other and imposition of oneself (Dussel, ).
This process formed the colonial system that pursued the extermination of all communal teachings, structures, and practices of the various indigenous and African peoples (Dussel, ). Furthermore, their home, nature, taken as a thing subject to the salvation process, should be exploited to depletion by mining and large-scale farming, both enabled by massive deforestation (Quijano, ).
Modern slavery was also created: banned in Europe yet mandatory in colonized places and specific to the Other. When enslaving the “Indian” proved unattainable, there was the introduction of the slave trade of the African people, who were taken out of their homes, placed in the dehumanizing slave ship, and treated as machines in the “New World” till the end of their lives. Meanwhile in Europe, primitive accumulation was taking place with the constitution of capitalism on the basis of direct exploitation of slave labor in the Americas (Mignolo, ) and indirect exploitation, in the lucrative business of trading the enslaved (Nascimento, ).
This was not only about political colonialism, but especially of erasing the Other through denial (Dussel, ) and creating societies based on the colonial structure, a building block of both the European and colonized identity (Quijano, ). This subjugation of the Other based on race and its developments was called coloniality of power by Quijano (). Moreover, this process also develops into coloniality of knowledge by the imposition of the European [way of] knowledge (Mignolo, ); and into coloniality of emotions through, inter alia, the invalidation of supposedly irrational-affective manifestations by the black and the indigenous (Guerrero Arias, ). The impact was such that Dussel () remarked that all the colonized – the descendants of whites, blacks, and indigenous people – became the Other of the Europeans of today, albeit with significant differences as regards their own self-perception.
Even though historically colonialism had a start and came to an end, coloniality, the enabler of modernity and capitalism, remained after the political independences. Still, not every denied culture was extinct, since the Other-face of modernity resisted (Dussel, ) and must now be uncovered in a process of revelation (Dussel, ). Two heritages contribute toward this movement: the living well of the Abya Yala indigenous peoples; and the quilombo teachings, during colonial Brazil. There are, however, two preliminary questions as to what, methodologically and conceptually, these teachings are.
The analetic method is used. Proposed by Dussel (), the analetic method is the metaphysical superseding of dialectic. However important, one must go beyond the individual production of knowledge (ontology) and put in practice the revelation of the Other in their own exteriority, giving the Other a voice and word with which to produce knowledge and make decisions. This is so because colonialism drew on a conquering dialectic, with the imposition of the European perspective, which replaced the premodern dialectic movement of reformulating the culture of dominant peoples building on those under domination (Dussel, ). It is imperative to go beyond the –premodern, conquering modern, and ontological modern– dialectic toward mutual (analectic) contribution of teachings that may reappreciate all the lived experiences and teachings denied.
These teachings are the knowledge produced communally addressing the fundamental questions concerning the (re)reproduction of life in society (Dussel, ). These teachings can take on multiple forms, from myth to philosophy, and must be considered rational, as they are the raison d’être of said questions (Dussel, ). Analectic is the superseding of dialectic toward hermeneutic phenomenology, for it builds on a collective understanding, including of the limitation, of the scientific field, but also on the denial of the scientific method itself by reformulating the concept of rationality and admitting of perspectives not arising therefrom.
In this article, considering that coloniality first invests itself with power before manifesting itself in other areas, we start from other political teachings of the indigenous and [African slave descendant] quilombola peoples. The focus is not on specific social structures, but on the fundamental principle that supports them and that, analectically, has the potential to transform today’s colonial-driven structures. The indigenous peoples have already created a synthesis-expression of this nonwestern political philosophy: living well. In the case of the black quilombos, a term is still lacking that may comprise the multiple aspects of that principle, hence the adoption of quilombo teachings, broken down into categories that black Brazilian theorists have termed quilombagem, quilombismo, and quilombolismo.
2. The living well of the Abya Yala indigenous peoples
Living well (sumak kawsay, in Quechua, and suma qamaña, in Aymara) is one of the most ancient manifestations of resistance by the American indigenous peoples, one founded on traditions long preceding the colonization and under reformulation up to our days (Quijano, ). In writing and in refutation of colonialism, it is perceptible in a seventeenth-century letter-book by Inca Felipe Guaman Poma to the Pope and the King of Spain proposing a “good government” based on living well, a government constantly attuned to the local populations and to overcoming the oppression experienced (Ortíz, ).
Living well is manifested by every Abya Yala indigenous people and is founded on the communal paradigm that the community comes before the individual and that life is to be contextually realized within a territory, with other people and other nonhuman beings (Huanacuni Mamani, ). The perspective adopted is one of harmony and balance, as provided for in the ideal of complementarity: the individual is not suppressed from the idea of community, but rather is complementary thereto, in a constant balance between the whole and the parts (Huanacuni Mamani, ).
The holistic perspective breaks with modern binarisms while, in the nature-human being relation established, the human being is perceived as belonging to nature, while Mother Nature provides their vital energy (Silva; Magalhães, ). Not being a thing, rather a distinct fellow, nature is not the object of exploitation but rather an element of the whole that must remain in balance and be respected (Acosta, ). Hence living well is an alternative to colonial progress models and to the very perception of predatory developmentalism, that has led the countries of the Global South to deplete nature in order to achieve European societal standards (Acosta, ).
Interdependence is equally seen in the relation between humans, in that there is no imposition of specific ways of life; rather, dialogic and productive coexistence of differences (Díaz-Muñoz, ). Long before colonialism, even when one Abya Yala people conquered another, and notwithstanding domination relations, there was a dialectic that incorporated and re-signified the vanquished cultures, demonstrative of a certain regard for the other (Dussel, ). However, with living well re-signified by colonialism, differences are radically respected and must be cultivated and talked about by a society without exploitation of human beings by other human beings (Silva; Magalhães, ) with different cultures legitimately existing in a same territory (Huanacuni Mamani, ).
Epistemically, living well recovers traditional teachings and states the need to think beyond modern Cartesianism – not only by breaking with the disciplinary borders of science, but also by going beyond scientific knowledge (Díaz-Muñoz, ). And it is precisely because these multiple teachings and experiences are accepted that the coloniality of emotions is also rejected, as the very same affective interaction between human beings and nature yields knowledge (Guerrero Arias, ).
Thus, the construction of a society is not the fruit of ready-made scientific formulas; living well is comprised of a utopian horizon that is to be concretely materialized in dialogue with the various pluralities that make up a community. Living well is life at its plenitude in constant construction (Huanacuni Mamani, ): not a distant future goal, but a present-day balance practice that always aims at a state of greater harmony and whose content is re-signified communally. Because of that the individual-community complementarity and the need for harmony are also underscored: living well cannot be mistaken for an easy life, quite the opposite, it is the “[…] difficult experience of keeping a balance between what we can obtain from life, from nature, and what we can [give in] return […]” (Krenak, ).
Because living well preaches harmony, it also possesses ordinary features that come to be materialized by drawing on local teachings, as perceptible in this scheme:
One can perceive that not only is the idea of living well inappropriate to merely rational language, but is also a potent liberating utopia for the deconstruction of coloniality and for the current stage of hyper-exploitation of nature. Presented from this viewpoint, we move on to the next section, with the inquiry into the quilombo teachings produced by black men and women in the colonization process in Brazil.
3. Quilombo teachings
The quilombos, as social experiences on the American continent, arise as the result of resistance to colonialism. Yet they were not just other experiences, as they had two main features: reappreciating the heritage of and lived experience in the homeland (named Africa) and denying the colonial experience. Though the establishment of quilombos is a common experience in Latin America, especially in Central America, this inquiry focuses on the phenomenon from a Brazilian standpoint.
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the main form of resistance put up by the blacks after being forcefully transported and enslaved in America was the establishment of quilombos: eminently rural communities formed by runaway slaves who, as far as possible, adapted forms of relations known in Africa (Nascimento, ). This can be seen in its Kimbundu etymon, kilombo, which is representative of initiation rites of the Imbangala warrior society of central Angola (Nascimento, ), and of some social dynamics cultivated in the quilombos, although clearly distinguishable from the originating experience.
In the nineteenth century, after systematic persecution leading to a significant decline in the population of these communities, there was a redefinition of what the quilombo was (Nascimento, ). Over and beyond the strategy to flee slavery, the term became a symbol of resistance to the colonial system as a whole (Nascimento, ). Even though running away from slavery came to an end with abolition, Beatriz Nascimento () argues that the quilombo remained in place in the post-colonial society transmuted into segregated urban spaces resulting from marginalization-driven race and class policies.
Analyses of this complex experience generated several concepts, succinctly approached next.
The first one is quilombagem, a sweeping radical movement of constant insurrection led by the enslaved during the colonial period toward their emancipation as a class and by other figures marginalized by the regime, and toward destabilizing and overthrowing the slavery system (Moura, ). Herein the quilombo is considered the central organizational unit of the quilombagem yet is not restricted to countryside manifestations, as there are other forms of expression of African cultures in several other places, including urban areas.
Quilombismo, in turn, is conceived as an African-descending resistance ideology that proposes the creation of an anticapitalist, antiracist, and antiimperialist society based on ecological harmony, collectiveness, and solidarity (Nascimento, ). Inspired in the historical role of the quilombos, quilombismo stands for the radical transformation of the current relations of production, in that it rejects the oppressing structures hinged on Eurocentric rationality such as private property and exploitation of labor. Ecological harmony, in turn, is the rapprochement of the [Afro-Brazilian descendant] quilombola, now the children, with Mother Earth, in a process that enables their rediscovering their humanity, freedom, and the breaking away with predatory environmental practices, including the plantation system (Ferdinand, ).
Though quilombismo is the more popular term, Farfán-Santos () points to the appearance of the variant form quilombolismo, which emphasizes the quilombola identity by those descending from the communities expressive of quilombagem, in addition to black liberation and the struggle for an alternative system.
Evidently these are not exclusive definitions; rather, they represent different perspectives on the political and symbolic role of the quilombo. What is striking is the recovery and defense by quilombismo of the values and teachings cultivated by quilombagem, transformed to ensure the preservation of members and the essence of their culture – the latter highlighted by quilombolismo.
This is relevant because the violence that targeted the quilombos during the colonial period was not limited to physical assault. Faced with the impossibility of material extermination of the quilombo, several policies were carried out for the purpose of belittling the various beliefs and customs of the quilombola population, especially by referring to them as primitive and irrational manifestations (Moura, ).
It is in this sense that Moura () rejects the idea that the cultural transformation of the black population was the result of acculturation: these changes were effected to avoid absorption and forced replacement of their values. The new appearance concealed the cultural manifestation stigmatized by colonialism and made it possible to protect a core of nonmodern teachings, albeit affected to some degree.
In light of this attempt at cultural control, quilombagem represents a form of “self-defense of the oppressed culture”, through most notably particular changes of a mystical nature such as religious syncretism and linguistic adaptations (Moura, ).
4. Peace and violence perspectives driven by living well and quilombo teachings
The colonial modernity instituted peace as the ultimate stage of order and progress, coupled with absence of conflict and State stability. This conception of modernity, however, draws on the historical violence that ensured its consolidation, e.g. the enslaving of Africans and the extermination of indigenous peoples, by structuring society in being/nonbeing zones (Azarmandi & Pauls, ; Gill, ). In the case of the colonized peoples, their assumed savagery would justify the violence perpetrated against them, presenting pacification as essential to imposing and perpetuating order. This peace does not eradicate violence; instead it only reorganizes it within institutional systems upholding epistemic inequalities and exclusions.
Living well and quilombo teachings oppose this hierarchical conception of peace. Rather than a fixed state to be achieved in the future, living well proposes dynamic and collective balance founded on interdependence between humans and nonhumans. This balance already exists and is manifested in the present, not as a distant ideal, but as a continuous endeavor toward shared building and constant negotiation. The recognition that peace is not an ultimate destination, but a living and relational process, breaks away with homogeneous models of coexistence and praises plurality of social organization forms. Likewise, the quilombos were not just refuges, but spaces for the reconstitution of sociabilities based on cooperation and autonomy.
The quilombola and indigenous peoples do not conceive peace as a state imposed from the top, but as a process that requires acknowledging contradictions and collectively building balance. Peace, according to their teachings, is not denial of conflict, but its dialogic and context-bound administering. Unlike modern peace, which separates violence and order, decolonial teachings comprehend that violence can only be overcome when the structures that sustain it are radically transformed. Thus, peace does not operate as a tool for social control, but as a dynamic system of mutual respect between humans and nonhumans, one requiring constant negotiation and adaptation.
Hence living well and the quilombo teachings expand thought on peace and violence, as they call into question coloniality and propose a horizon in which coexistence is not synonymous with imposition, but with relations sustained on reciprocity, plurality, and autonomy, as currently being experienced and reinvented.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The concepts of living well and quilombo teachings emerge as practices of resistance to coloniality, provide alternatives that call into question the modern logics of domination and exploitation, break away with dominant epistemologies, and suggest the construction of a more just, sustainable, and plural society.
One of the main similarities resides in how they conceive the relation between human beings and nature. With living well, nature is seen as part of an interdependent whole wherein human beings are just one component – a view that assigns a new meaning to this relation, prioritizing the balance and protection of Mother Earth. Similarly, the quilombo teachings underscore ecological harmony, in that the Earth is perceived as a place of living and sustenance demanding respect and care. In both, the human being/nature relation is marked by an interdependence that rejects the colonial logic of predatory appropriation of natural resources, without denying complementarity in the use of nature by all the inhabitants of Earth for the promotion of their lives.
However, these similarities are not limited to a stance before nature, given that these philosophies also propose combating the authoritarianism of the “Eurocentered self”: more than acknowledging the existence of a society that is constantly stifled by immeasurable violence, that silences diverse voices, these teachings allow us to reflect on the origin of the pains of our peoples and ultimately on the creation of new antidotes.
The fight against the homogenizing and genocidal modernity that seeks to impose its own rationality as one-track thinking begins with the unveiling of the Other – while this otherness breaks with the symbolic violence of the category race, as this promotes hierarchies of given human beings over others and of humanity over nature. It is standing for the end of excluding binarisms that are reinforced in a modern structure of power that uses physical violence against the victims of coloniality.
In this sense, the relation between peace and violence in living well and quilombo teachings also departs from the modern conception that exploits peace to perpetuate structures of oppression. Instead of a fixed or unattainable state, these teachings view this relation as a dynamic and relational process that is sustained by coexistence and continuous negotiation. Thereby, peace is not simply the absence of conflict but the collective ability to build balances without resorting to the violence imposed by binary hierarchical structures.
Living well and the quilombo teachings propose the creation of a reality that, though not deprived of some form of organization and division of tasks (that is, deprived of hierarchies), centralizes human and nonhuman solidarity as the starting point for thinking. This means that there is no ready-made answer to the future, but that new and nonviolent epistemological foundations are the instruments for the construction of an ideal horizon, the utopia to be pursued.
Moreover, modernity cannot be dissociated from the predatory, capital-driven economic model, revealing of the material violence that afflicts a large share of the Latin American population and intensifies the horrors in the life of racialized people. The logic underpinning the exploitation of the human being and the objectification of nature does not hold, but can be assigned new meanings by alternative teachings that understand, on the one hand, the need to renew natural cycles in opposition to their depletion and, on the other, human labor over and beyond individual discourse.
Thus, it becomes clear that these practices not only criticize capitalism and modernity, but also provide concrete roads toward building another more inclusive and sustainable society, one centered on respect for nature, human dignity, and diversity.
REFERENCES
Acosta, A. (2015). El buen vivir como alternativa al desarrollo: Algunas reflexiones económicas y no tan económicas. Política y Sociedad, 52(2), 299–330. https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_POSO.2015.v52.n2.45203
Azarmandi, M., & Pauls, C. (2024). Coloniality of Peace. Virtual Encyclopaedia – Rewriting Peace and Conflict. https://rewritingpeaceandconflict.net/coloniality-of-peace/
Díaz-Muñoz, J. G. (2024). Reflexiones sobre el buen vivir desde tres miradas epistémicas: Revisión de la literatura, diálogo de saberes e investigación interdisciplinar. Revista DyCS Victoria, 6(1), 28–44. https://doi.org/10.29059/rdycsv.v6i1.183
Dussel, E. (1986). Método para uma filosofia da libertação: superação analética da dialética hegeliana. São Paulo: Edições Loyola.
Dussel, E. (2000). Europa, modernidad y eurocentrismo. In E. Lander (Ed.), La colonialidad del saber: Eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales – perspectivas latinoamericanas. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 41–53.
Dussel, E. (2017). Filosofías del sur: descolonización y transmodernidad. Ciudad de México: Ediciones Akal.
Farfán-Santos, E. (2016). Black bodies, black rights: The politics of quilombolismo in contemporary Brazil. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Ferdinand, M. (2022). Uma ecologia decolonial: pensar a partir do mundo caribenho. São Paulo: Editora Ubu.
Gill, A. (2023). Systems of conflictivity. Virtual Encyclopaedia – Rewriting Peace and Conflict. https://rewritingpeaceandconflict.net/systems-of-conflictivity/
Guerrero Arias, P. (2010). Corazonar desde las sabidurías insurgentes el sentido de las epistemologías dominantes, para construir sentidos otros de la existencia. Sophia, 8, 101–146. https://doi.org/10.17163/soph.n8.2010.05
Huanacuni Mamani, F. (2010). Filosofía, políticas, estrategias y experiencias regionales andinas. Lima: Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas. https://dhls.hegoa.ehu.eus/uploads/resources/5182/resource_files/Vivir_Bien_1_.pdf
Krenak, A. (2020). Caminhos para a cultura do Bem Viver. São Paulo: Clacso. https://www.culturadobemviver.org/pdf/Caminhos_para_a_cultura_do_Bem_Viver_Ailton_Krenak.pdf
Mignolo, W. D. (2006). El giro gnoseológico decolonial: La contribución de Aimé Cesairé a la geopolítica y la corpo-política del conocimiento. In A. Césaire, Discurso sobre el colonialismo. Madrid: Ediciones Akal, 197–221.
Moura, C. (1992). História do negro brasileiro. São Paulo: Editora Ática.
Nascimento, A. (2019). O quilombismo: Documentos de uma militância pan-africanista. Brasília: Fundação Palmares.
Nascimento, B. (2021). Uma história feita por mãos negras. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Zahar. E-book.
Ortiz, C. (2009). Felipe Guaman Poma, Clorinda Matto de Turner, Trinidad Enríquez y la teoría crítica: sus legados a la teoría social contemporánea. Yuyaykusun, Lima, 2.
Quijano, A. (2000). Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina. In E. Lander (Ed.), La colonialidad del saber: Eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales – perspectivas latinoamericanas. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 201–246.
Quijano, A. (2020). Questiones y horizontes: De la dependencia histórico-estructural a la colonialidad/descolonialidad del poder. Buenos Aires: CLACSO. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1gm019g.23
Silva, H. F. da, & Magalhães, J. L. Q. de. (2022). Os povos originários de Abya Yala e as novas tendências constitucionais latino-americanas: Reflexos conceituais ao debate acerca da democracia no século XXI. Revista Quaestio Iuris, 15(4), 1852–1876. https://doi.org/10.12957/rqi.2022.64817
How to cite this entry:
Hand Vargas Mencer, A. & Pasolini Gonring, A. C. (2025, May 9). Living well and quilombo teachings. Virtual Encyclopaedia – Rewriting Peace and Conflict. https://rewritingpeaceandconflict.net/living-well-and-quilombo-teachings/
This entry is a result of the joint call for contributions with the Latin American Council for Social Sciences (CLACSO).
Video-Interview
Dr. Cecilia Roa in Dialogue
Podcast
Layla Brown and Filiberto Penados in conversation with Fabricio Rodríguez and Viviana García Pinzón
