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In recent decades, most Latin American countries have had their constitutions substantially amended, and several countries have introduced new constitutions altogether. Ecuador's new constitution came into effect in 2008 and, ever since, the society has shifted its traditional attitudes towards social rights, which had previously been undervalued and dismissed as mere subjective issues. Regarding housing as a basic human right, the promotion of social housing has been constitutionally guaranteed, and public policies have been set forth for that purpose. The present work will analyse: (1) the justice procedures set out in order to enforce habitat and housing rights, as brought to the fore in Ecuador since the advent of the 2008 Constitution; and (2) the public housing policies enforced, emphasising their historical constraints, financial aims, political potentialities, and actual outcomes, which in some cases were the reproduction of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the main features of the "sustainability of life" approach, a theoretical and political approach specifically developed in the context of Spanish, Latin American, and Caribbean feminist economics in the last two decades. It dialogues with decolonial feminisms; ecofeminisms and degrowth ecological proposals; the popular, social, and solidarity economy; and feminist reflections on "good living" and "good co-existence." The article situates this approach within the wider spectrum of feminist economics as a plural school of thought and examines its particular characteristics in greater detail. Specifically, the article highlights sustainability of life as a multilevel approach that connects economic, social, and ecological systems and reveals the capital-life conflict that runs through them; offers a non-Eurocentric and intersectional perspective for analyzing the diverse implications of this conflict; and presents a political positioning that draws emancipatory imaginaries and horizons that place life at the center. Sustainability of life has come to be a main theoretical approach of Spanish, Latin American, and Caribbean feminisms. It offers an emancipatory roadmap for organizing life outside of capitalist structures. It proposes a vision for constructing an economy that is feminist, plural, and inclusive, prioritizing women and peripheral subjects. It presents a political proposal for collective action to confront the logic of capitalist, patriarchal, and racist systems. It harbors as its ultimate goal the sustaining of a "good collective life." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1960s–1970s in Ecuador, Indigenous and peasant movements challenged the descriptions of rural life in government education programmes while offering a space of transculture. As Sylvia Wynter [2003. 'Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation – An Argument.' CR: The New Centennial Review 3 (3): 257–337.] proposes it, such space allows to narrate human life with sensibilities non-aligned with normalised cultural particularities of the ideal tacit 'we' in national(ised) stories. This text engages with the convivial movements between narratives and counternarratives about rural lives and ways of living. It argues that rural can be thought as a genre and ruralness as a practice of existence, which disrupt overdetermining notions of what counts as dignified life, valid political demands, and possible futures. That disruption is an exercise of conviviality where Indigenous and racialised peoples challenge a living together under rules and practices that demand their assimilation or erasure. Their luchas (fights) are proposals for coexistence through social change. Particularly the article looks at how the poem The Bread of Life, published in the bilingual Kichwa/Spanish newspaper Jatari Campesino, pushed back against the logics of 'bettering' lives offered by Fundamental Education and Community Development projects. These were projects espoused by the Ecuadorian Government and UNESCO and funded by the Alliance for Progress, among other foreign aid agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper, 'A relational turn for sustainability science? Relational thinking, leverage points and transformations' presents a compelling summary of the incipient relational turn in sustainability science. That piece and the reply and response that follow put forth important arguments about what relational thinking is and how it can infuse sustainability science research. We are grateful for this conversation, but also recognize that crucial intellectual contributions from the Global South require further treatment. In response to West et al'.s invitation to conversation, we offer a summary of a diverse body of scholarship and practice that informs sustainability science in subtle but clear ways: Latin American contributions. We first summarize a set of Latin American theoretical contributions to relational thinking relevant to sustainability science. We then offer examples of how relational thinking infuses everyday life in many Latin American contexts. We close with reflections on the importance of Latin American thinking for sustainability science and transformations toward sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]