Causaita Puruntuna (“Let's Plan Life Together”): Planes de Vida / Life Plans and the Political Horizon of Indigenous Planning in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Abstract

Planes de Vida (Life Plans) are an initiative in Latin America connecting Indigenous self-governance with a state vision of a good life for citizens. While Life Plans have been proposed since the mid-1980s, these are often crafted with the vision and language of states in place of Indigenous ones. Informed by Indigenous Standpoint Theory and Napo Runa living ecologies, we use autoethnography, participant observation, and secondary text analysis to re-orient the relationship between state and Indigenous planning, and to ask what Amazonian futures would be possible if they started from Indigenous (rather than state) planning. To explore this re-orientation, we examine the case of the Kichwa organisation FOIN, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We argue that Life Plans can be indigenised with Kichwa planning philosophies and model ways to centre Indigenous methodologies that can shape the transformational potential of such planning initiatives.