ABSTRACT
Notions of development have been used to justify and promote globally certain visions about how to attain wellbeing and progress. In this chapter, I offer an historical analysis of hegemonic development discourses in education and the alternatives that have recently been promoted by organisations such as UNESCO and the OECD. My argument is that these attempts to change hegemonic conceptions of human development are set within a logic of finding development alternatives. They construe the challenges that humanity and the planet are facing as problems that can be addressed with adjustments to current dominant views of human development. As an alternative to development, I discuss the notion of el buen vivir, derived from indigenous South American world views. It is a philosophy of life based on the values of reciprocity and solidarity that challenges the stark Western ontological distinctions between the self, the community, and the environment.
