Ayahuasca Shamanism
Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond, edited by Beatriz Caiuby Labate and Clancy Cavnar
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.
Features
- An in-depth exploration of the spread of indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon to Western societies
- Focuses on ayahuasca, a psychoactive drink essential in many indigenous shamanic rituals of the Amazon
About the Authors
Beatriz Caiuby Labate, PhD, is Visiting Professor, Drug Policy Program, Center for Economic Research and Education (CIDE).
Clancy Cavnar, PsyD, is Research Associate of the Nucleus for Interdisciplinary Studies of Psychoactives (NEIP).
Contributors:
Bernd Brabec de Mori, University of Graz
Alhena Caicedo, Ecole de Hautes Etudes Sciences Sociales
Clancy Cavnar, independent scholar
Mariana Ciavatta Pantoja Franco, Federal University of Acre
Françoise Barbira Freedman, independent scholar
Evgenia Fotiou, Luther College
Beatriz Caiuby Labate, Center for Economic Research and Education
Esther Jean Langdon, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
Anne-Marie Losonczy, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne
Silvia Mesturini, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Daniela Peluso, University of Kent
Isabel Santana de Rose, Instituto Brasil Plural
Glenn Shepard, Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi, Belem do Para, Brazil
Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen, University of Helsinki
Product Details
Paperback
(will ship on 22 May 2014)
320 Pages | 38 illus.
6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches
ISBN: 9780199341207