Nova Religio The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions
April 13, 2012
Esther Jean Langdon, Isabel Santana de Rose
17 citations
Guarani Indian leaders on the Atlantic coast of Brazil have incorporated ayahuasca, an Amazonian psychoactive ritual substance, into their own ritual practices, now recognizing it as part of their culture and tradition. This appropriation emerged from a network connecting the Guarani, members of Sacred Fire of Itzachilatlan, followers of the Brazilian ayahuasca religion Santo Daime, and a health team providing primary care to Indian communities. The case demonstrates that contemporary shamanisms arise from specific political and historical contexts, and that shamanism as an analytical concept must be understood as a dialogical category shaped by interactions among actors with diverse origins, discourses, and interests.
Revista Colombiana de Antropología
June 13, 2013
Isabel Santana de Rose, Esther Jean Langdon
5 citations
In the Guarani village Mbiguaçu (Santa Catarina, Brazil), the adoption of ayahuasca and other ritual practices results from dialogue with non-Indian groups during shared ritual performances and from the circulation of concepts in Brazilian public policies and alternative spiritual movements. Actors in this network share ideas such as indigenous knowledge, the 'ecological' and 'spiritual' native, indigenousness, and 'traditional medicine'. This appropriation is part of an ongoing ethnopolitical movement of cultural transfiguration among the Guarani of the Brazilian coast.
Revista Ingesta
March 28, 2019
Isabel Santana de Rose
4 citations
In the Santo Daime community Céu da Mantiqueira in southern Minas Gerais, Brazil, healthcare blends biomedical resources, a large number of health professionals, and diverse therapeutic practices from different fields. Using the concept of intermedicality from Indigenous health studies, the analysis shows that boundaries between spirituality and therapy, between ritual/religious and therapeutic uses of ayahuasca, and between science and religion are porous and diffuse, interpenetrating and mixing.
Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology
January 1, 2025
Pietro Benedito, Isabel Santana de Rose, Emilia Sanabria et al.
As psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) trials advance, clinics offering such treatments are becoming a near-term reality, raising questions about therapeutic modalities, infrastructure, funding, and access. This paper describes the process of designing and holding a speculative space to imagine possible future ayahuasca care spaces. Ayahuasca healing remains largely tied to ritual settings, creating a complex and ambivalent relationship with the broader category of psychedelics and PATs. Through speculation, the authors collaboratively addressed issues of appropriation, commodification, standardization, and pharmaceuticalization of plant medicines, while exploring the more-than-human dimensions of care. The goal was to shift interactions with field interlocutors toward co-laboration and co-re-definition, discussing the creation, parameters, and framework of such a conversation.
Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America
November 30, 2024
Isabel Santana de Rose
This paper reviews Jean Langdon's key contributions to the study of shamanism, emphasizing her role in reviving research in the 1980s when male anthropologists dominated the field. Langdon proposed that Indigenous shamanisms be understood as cosmological systems, emerging from specific political and historical contexts, and as dialogical categories shaped by diverse actors, discourses, and interests. The review highlights her influence on the anthropology of health and Indigenous health policies, as well as on discussions of gender and female agency in lowland South America. Langdon's later work focuses on contemporary shamanic networks, particularly those centered on ayahuasca, which connect Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors across geographic and conceptual boundaries, underscoring the dynamic and creative nature of Amerindian shamanisms.