ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the international circulation of the indigenous cosmological concept of “vivr bien,” and its impacts upon multilateral climate change agendas. In response to the failed 2009 COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen, Bolivia has come to lead an alternative international movement to address climate change. In 2010 it hosted a widely attended World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which produced the “Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.” Since then Bolivia’s perspective has been prominent in global climate policy forums. This chapter traces the sources of Bolivia’s protagonism, beginning with the influence of Aymara cultural revitalization, its effects on national policy making, the export of indigenous conceptions of the environment from Bolivia into non-indigenous multilateral forums, and the translation of vivir bien from “living well” to “harmony with nature” in the UN context. Often mobilized to critique global capitalism, “living well” now provides an ethical edge to the work of civil society climate change advocates engaged with the UN.
