This paper studies the concept of sumak kawsay in Quechua / Quichua or suma qamaña in Aymara. In the first part, it analyses the origin and meaning of the concept. It maps its various uses, inquiring whether it should be understood as distinct ideas or as a unitary concept. In the second part, it discusses the appropriation of the notion during the constituent processes that occurred in Ecuador and Bolivia and its use as a programmatic justification by the respective governments of Rafael Correa and Evo Morales, articulated to ideas of “community socialism”, as defended by Alvaro Garcia Linera. In conclusion, the paper argues that these ideas are the actualization of a recurrent theme of the peripheral left thought since the nineteenth century: the search for alleged communal elements still present in these societies, originated on a (to some extent idealized) precapitalist and not Western past, which would serve as material and spiritual basis for the construction of an egalitarian society.
Latin American Political Thought; Sumak kawsay / suma qamaña; Communalism