Nature and Alternatives to Development in Latin America: Contributions for a Dialogue

Although there is a long history and evidence on a systematic critic to the politics and concept of sustainable development and there are several well-known facts about the unsustainability of this discourse especially form the Global South, the mainstream politics of the Global North (and partially from the South) still insists in it. Therefore, is a need of alternatives to development. This chapter will argue the important contributions of the environmental thinking in Latina America and how it has been consolidating some theoretical clarifications and critiques that has progressed over decades up to contemporary environmental discussions and its criticisms of development. Therefore, in the new millennium, in Latin American critical thinking is now working on post-development issues, concerned with its relationship with the natural environment, which has been shown by the indigenous communities and their proposal of suma qamaña or sumak kawsay. But it requires a review and rethinking of hegemonic knowledge, which will need intercultural dialogues, where the fundamental challenge consists of listening, seeing, respecting the other one different, and learning. So in the last part of the chapter are some initial proposals and perspectives for that dialogue.