29 April 2022
Event Date(s)/Period(s)
29 April 2022
Centre for the Humanities and Medicine
Ayahuasca is an Indigenous psychoactive brew traditionally used for healing, social welfare, and magic across parts of the Amazon basin. Although its use was declining during the twentieth century, the increasing global interest in drinking ayahuasca for psychological and spiritual healing has revitalised and transformed Indigenous shamanism in recent decades. Based upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted during 2019 at an ayahuasca healing retreat near Pucallpa in remote Peru, this presentation illustrates how Indigenous Shipibo practices of curing and sorcery have adapted to the demands of international clients seeking primitivist healing. It explores how asymmetrical global relations shape the intercultural healing practices and visionary experiences at the retreats.
Speaker: Dr Alex Gearin（木言）, Assistant Professor, Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, University of Hong Kong
Discussant: Dr Glenn Shepard, Medical Anthropologist & Research Associate, the American Museum of Natural History, New York
Moderator: Dr Laura Meek, Assistant Professor, Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, HKU
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