Buen Vivir and Disability's Swerve

Buen Vivir is a postdevelopment philosophy enshrined in Ecuador's 2008 Constitution, which offers an alternative to neoliberal development frameworks. This paper examines the distinctive features of Buen Vivir and associated reforms regarding disabled people's rights, alongside Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ analysis of “ecology of knowledges,” to suggest that the outlook offers important resources for theorizing disabled people's active role in shaping shared notions of living well. These reforms uphold epistemic ideals of solidarity and the possibility of developing embodied knowledges that can further contribute to the life of the community. Buen Vivir is both a goal, living with rich, meaningful relationships in a pluralistic society, and a process, developing the knowledges that can inform the expression of those relationships. As such, Buen Vivir motivates creating the conditions that allow for disabled persons to participate in processes creating new knowledges that shape meanings of disability and good ways of living.