“Men,” “shaman,” and “ayahuasca” as overlapping clichés in the Peruvian vegetalismo
Ana Gretel Echazú Böschemeier, Carl Kevin Carew
February 15, 2018 DOI: 10.4324/9781315227955-8 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Topics | Ayahuasca Shamanism |
| Keywords | Cliché Synchronicity |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that the myth of a "Male-Shaman-Who-Heals-With-Ayahuasca" in Northern societies is a construct that obscures the local diversity of gender roles, healing practitioners, and plant use in Peruvian Amazonian curanderismo. |
Abstract
This chapter presents the construction of the idea of a "Male-Shaman-Who-Heals-With-Ayahuasca" as an emergent myth in societies from the political North – a myth which asserts powerful meaning in a global world. This myth is related to power relationships between people and plants that are commodified and embedded in the context of capitalism and patriarchy. Guided by a reflexive empirical approach, the authors bring together four nodes of the myth (1) the male, 2) the shaman, 3) the one who heals, and 4) the ayahuasca) in order to compare them systematically with key chosen aspects. Within the results of a historical approach and long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the Lowland Peruvian Amazon, the aim is to provide tools for the deconstruction of this myth by examining social, cultural, and historical roots of Peruvian curanderismo. Four aspects are considered: the local dynamics of gender, the diversity of the specialist practitioners, the complexity of ideas about healing, and the centrality of plants in a local pharmacopoeia in which ayahuasca is but one plant among many.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on ayahuasca, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The globalization of ayahuasca: Harm reduction or benefit maximization? | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond | 2014 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience | 2003 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Towards psychedelic apprenticeship: Developing a gentle touch for the mediation and validation of psychedelic-induced insights and revelations. | 2022 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Ayahuasca healing beyond the Amazon: the globalization of a traditional indigenous entheogenic practice | 2008 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |