Quality of Life from the South, Local Knowledge, Socio-Ecological Relationships, and Citizen Participation in Times of Global Climate Change

Abstract

The quality of life in the South is coping with several problems and tensions that require solution: poverty, socio-territorial and climatic inequalities, lack of scientific and technological development, corruption, migration, lack of access to services, obsolescence of public institutions, and low citizen’s participation in the social affairs. There is a global crisis of the Anthropocene’s development model. Currently, this context explains multiple mobilizations such as social, environmental, gender, ethnic, working class, and student ones in the South, especially in Latin America. The mobilizations tend to deepen to the extent that the underlying problems are not solved with due urgency, depth, and focus on the human dignity. However, most people and communities value, practice, and aspire to improve their levels of quality of life. This is based on experiences and traditions—such as Living Well—that they have cultivated, beyond the empire of colonizing forces and based on common goods that have learned in a closer relationship with nature. In the South, there is cultural diversity, good coexistence practices, cooperative traditions, food quality, and biodiversity that are the bases for deepening the dreaming quality of life.