Materials for an Indigenous Philosophy: Eco-Spirituality

Abstract

This work takes as its starting point the indigenous world, specifically the Kichwa Saraguro people in Ecuador, and within that, eco-spirituality is developed as part of indigenous eco-religion and philosophy. The method used for the approach is the analectic method, developed by liberation theology and philosophy. Based on the above, it proposes to confront an eco-spiritual meta-narrative that links a collective subject and the Pachamama with another kind of modern, capitalist meta-narrative centred on death. The first meta-narrative sacralises life; the second meta-narrative has money, the market and competition as its totem. Eco-spirituality is developed as a long-standing category, whose persistence is attributed to the collective struggle of the indigenous world. The conclusions allude to a confrontation between the scientific parameters of modern science related to the pseudo-spirituality of capital, as opposed to the biotic parameters of eco-spirituality and indigenous philosophy.