This article explores two concepts of community wellbeing informed by Indigenous perspectives: Buen Vivir and Comunalidad. We critically examine the current use and practice of these concepts and their potential influence in practices oriented to sustainable development. We argue that instead of continuing to apply the siloed international frameworks of sustainability (a prevalent tendency that to date has marginalized and alienated Indigenous ways of knowing), collaborative sustainable development efforts involving Indigenous communities should be grounded in local understandings of community wellbeing. Such understandings include intrinsically dynamic, interconnected, multileveled, fluid, inclusive, and holistic ideas (from both, Western and Indigenous perspectives) related to what it means to live and be well in terms of the distinctive knowledges of each community. Our findings suggest that this approach can further the success of practitioners and scholars’ collaborative work in the field of sustainable development with Indigenous communities. An overarching dimension in these implications is to emphasize the importance of locally grounded knowledges in informing policies that direct public resources and regulatory frameworks related to the sustainable development of Indigenous communities.

This article draws heavily on my PhD thesis (as the last reference), which was published after the ICSD 2021 conference took place. The study investigates how local traditional knowledges are informing Indigenous women entrepreneurs (IWE) in promoting sustainable economic development in their communities during the 2020–2021 Covid-19 pandemic. The research is grounded in Indigenous guided participatory approaches with collaborators/participants from six Tseltal communities located in Chiapas, Mexico. The research findings offer deep immersion into the critical aspects of Tseltal knowledge, including environmental, social, cultural, and economic dimensions. These aspects leverage local capacity in developing sHachel jwohc’ a’tel (Tseltal entrepreneurship initiatives) while enabling opportunities for gender transformative collaborative work and sna’el ya’beyel stuc te bin ay ma’yuc (Tseltal economic development grounded in community wellbeing).