Well-being and Buen Vivir: intercultural dialogue between etic and emic perspectives.

This study aimed to analyze perceptions of well-being, happiness, and meaning in life among non-indigenous and indigenous participants from the Javaé and Karajá peoples, based on etic and emic perspectives. A qualitative, exploratory, and comparative design was adopted. Participants included 13 indigenous students enrolled in the intercultural education degree program at the Federal University of Goiás and 14 non-indigenous individuals living in the central-west region of Brazil. Data were collected through three open-ended questions addressing well-being, happiness, and meaning in life. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using initial and focused coding procedures grounded in constructivist grounded theory, supported by computational tools based on large language models. The findings revealed common categories across both groups, such as family and community relationships, meaningful work and teaching, physical and mental health, and realization of aspirations. However, these categories acquire distinct meanings across different cultural frameworks. Among indigenous participants, well-being was conceived as a relational, collective, and territorially grounded experience, integrating culture, spirituality, ancestry, and nature. In contrast, non-indigenous participants emphasized more individualized narratives, centered on personal progress, consumption, and immediate pleasures. These results highlight the importance of intercultural and decolonial approaches to psychological research on well-being and challenge the universalization of models derived predominantly from WEIRD populations.