An attack to anti-hegemonic social imaginaries: Analysis of the environmental policy impact on the social perception of nature.

Abstract

Politically, the Ecuadorean environmental policy implemented during Rafael Co- rrea´s administration had recourse to ancestral anti-hegemonic social imaginaries, such as sumak kawsay. These anti-hegemonic imaginaries were also included in the state discourse and even in the 2008 text of the Constitution. From this discur- sive perspective, a new structure in the relationship between nature-society and the ideal political procedures for development arose. State interpretation and imple- mentation of “good living” led to ambiguity in environmental political practices, thus paving the way to extractive activities and reducing consideration of the ancestral imaginaries only to political propaganda.