Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond

by Beatriz Caiuby Labate (Editor), Clancy Cavnar (Editor)

Beatriz Caiuby Labate and Clancy Cavnar offer an in-depth exploration of how Amerindian epistemology and ontology concerning indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon have spread to Western societies, and of how indigenous, mestizo, and cosmopolitan cultures have engaged with and transformed these forest traditions. The volume focuses on the use of ayahuasca, a psychoactive drink essential in many indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon.

Ayahuasca use has spread to countries far beyond its Amazonian origin, spurring a wide variety of legal and cultural responses. The essays in this volume look at how these responses have influenced ritual design and performance in traditional and non-traditional contexts, how displaced indigenous people and rubber tappers are engaged in the creative reinvention of rituals, and how these rituals help build ethnic alliances and cultural and political strategies. These essays explore important classic and contemporary issues in anthropology, including the relationship between the expansion of ecotourism and ethnic tourism and recent indigenous cultural revival and the emergence of new ethnic identities. The volume also examines trends in the commodification of indigenous cultures in post-colonial contexts, the combination of shamanism with a network of health and spiritually related services, and identity hybridization in global societies.

The rich ethnographies and extensive analysis of these essays will allow deeper understanding of the role of ritual in mediating the encounter between indigenous traditions and modern societies.

Genres: Anthropology, Religion, Spirituality

316 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2014

About the author

Bia Labate (Beatriz Caiuby Labate) has a PhD in Anthropology. Her main areas of interest are the study of psychoactive substances, drug policies, shamanism, ritual and religion.

Reviews

[Roger Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection of critical essays on the subject from a variety of different perspectives. It is especially useful in its articulation of the varieties of motivations at work and the ethical problems at stake in the globalization of Ayahuasca religions. It helps complicate myths about authenticity with respect to ayahuasca and at the same time highlights the ongoing domination that transcendent notions of spirituality, often articulated through the experiences of liberal privilege, that continues to affect living indigenous populations.