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A. Fabri and D. Floriani
Brazil), in its research line on Environmental Epistemology. It is also inspired by the
“global call for the construction of a sustainable future” carried out by the UN 2030
Agenda. In this way, the research seeks to analyze possible sustainable alternatives
for development in Latin America, especially in the areas that still have great wealth
of socio-biodiversity as in the case of the Amazon Rainforest.
Within this perspective, the theme chosen was Amerindian good living (GL),
because it is a promising concept that has been arousing the interest of intellectuals,
researchers, universities, the media and the public in general. As the GL is a category
under construction that has various definitions, we clarify that the Amerindian GL
dealt here is the one related to the lifestyle, the way of living employed by the
various autochthonous peoples of Latin America, who mix in their daily lives the
appropriated cosmovision to see the world, a traditional ecological knowledge to
interpret nature and unique systems of practices to interact with the environment. In
addition to reviewing aspects of the ethno-knowledge, the research seeks to verify
its possible hybridizations with modern science and technology in the search for
solutions related to the conservation of ecosystems and the perpetuation of local
cultures.
This research is based on a post-modern and post-developmental critique, in which
it considers that the socio-environmental crisis represented by climate change, global
warming, pollution and scarcity of water, deterioration of soil, pollution of air and
oceans, high rates of violence, poverty and deteriorating social that primarily affect
the ‘underdeveloped’ countries, is engendered within the modern capitalist rationality
that ended up creating the dichotomy between man and nature. This nature has
passed from the condition of a sacred, revered being to the condition of a simple
commodity that must be exploited to the very last consequences aiming at the wealth,
the development and the countries’ progress.
The environmental crisis that looms over the world is still perceived as a catastrophic premonition, not as a real ecological risk to the whole of humanity. In today’s
“risk society”, global insecurity is more focused on widespread warfare and everyday
violence than on the imminent danger of ecological collapse. The entropy limit law is
very far from the common knowledge, the collective imagination and the experience
to generate an awareness that effectively responds to ecological risk and redirects
action to the construction of sustainable societies (Leff 2010).
In addition to the context of imaginary worlds generated by the discourse of sustainable development, the theories of sustainability, the thinking of complexity, the
ecosofias of different imprints and the “environmental sciences”, the research of sustainable alternatives to communities analyzes the imaginary of peoples, of culturally
diverse communities in their ideologies, worldviews, and interests, able to generate
a collective inclination to understand and act on the environmental crisis and climate
change. “This will lead us to explore cultural and social imaginaries, not only for the
interest of knowing how people perceive ecological risk, but also from the perspective
of their possible constitution as social actors and their strategies of reappropriation
of the world from their ways of life” (Leff 2010, p. 45, our translation).
As Castoriadis (1975) points out, social imaginaries are not only the representations of the world or the cosmovisions that give existential meaning and coherence
A. Fabri and D. Floriani
Brazil), in its research line on Environmental Epistemology. It is also inspired by the
“global call for the construction of a sustainable future” carried out by the UN 2030
Agenda. In this way, the research seeks to analyze possible sustainable alternatives
for development in Latin America, especially in the areas that still have great wealth
of socio-biodiversity as in the case of the Amazon Rainforest.
Within this perspective, the theme chosen was Amerindian good living (GL),
because it is a promising concept that has been arousing the interest of intellectuals,
researchers, universities, the media and the public in general. As the GL is a category
under construction that has various definitions, we clarify that the Amerindian GL
dealt here is the one related to the lifestyle, the way of living employed by the
various autochthonous peoples of Latin America, who mix in their daily lives the
appropriated cosmovision to see the world, a traditional ecological knowledge to
interpret nature and unique systems of practices to interact with the environment. In
addition to reviewing aspects of the ethno-knowledge, the research seeks to verify
its possible hybridizations with modern science and technology in the search for
solutions related to the conservation of ecosystems and the perpetuation of local
cultures.
This research is based on a post-modern and post-developmental critique, in which
it considers that the socio-environmental crisis represented by climate change, global
warming, pollution and scarcity of water, deterioration of soil, pollution of air and
oceans, high rates of violence, poverty and deteriorating social that primarily affect
the ‘underdeveloped’ countries, is engendered within the modern capitalist rationality
that ended up creating the dichotomy between man and nature. This nature has
passed from the condition of a sacred, revered being to the condition of a simple
commodity that must be exploited to the very last consequences aiming at the wealth,
the development and the countries’ progress.
The environmental crisis that looms over the world is still perceived as a catastrophic premonition, not as a real ecological risk to the whole of humanity. In today’s
“risk society”, global insecurity is more focused on widespread warfare and everyday
violence than on the imminent danger of ecological collapse. The entropy limit law is
very far from the common knowledge, the collective imagination and the experience
to generate an awareness that effectively responds to ecological risk and redirects
action to the construction of sustainable societies (Leff 2010).
In addition to the context of imaginary worlds generated by the discourse of sustainable development, the theories of sustainability, the thinking of complexity, the
ecosofias of different imprints and the “environmental sciences”, the research of sustainable alternatives to communities analyzes the imaginary of peoples, of culturally
diverse communities in their ideologies, worldviews, and interests, able to generate
a collective inclination to understand and act on the environmental crisis and climate
change. “This will lead us to explore cultural and social imaginaries, not only for the
interest of knowing how people perceive ecological risk, but also from the perspective
of their possible constitution as social actors and their strategies of reappropriation
of the world from their ways of life” (Leff 2010, p. 45, our translation).
As Castoriadis (1975) points out, social imaginaries are not only the representations of the world or the cosmovisions that give existential meaning and coherence