Debatir el desarrollo, construir desde los procesos sociales

Abstract

In this text the meanings of the different perspectives on rural development in Latin America are addressed, and their contradictory and polemic contents are demonstrated. This shows the different forms in which development is understood by different social actors, and questions the usefulness of this concept for explaining the processes of generating wellbeing and quality of life of the population. In response to this, emphasis is made on locating the debate about development in its ideological bias, supported by various disciplines such as economy, sociology or political science and which have as bases the dominant precepts of Western Modernity. The emphasis in unmasking the ideological intentionality of this form of development is done in order to highlight the hegemonic discourses that legitimate relationships of power and exploitation in Latin American countries. Alternatively, conceptualizations that have been inspired of “the good life” and “living well” generated in social processes taking place in Bolivia and Ecuador have caused the arising of forms of meaning construction that question relations of domination, and bring into focus the importance of transformations towards a better future for the dispossessed sectors.