Time: 6:00 - 7:00pm Speaker: Dr Pedro FavaronVenue: Willoughby Lecture Theatre
Dr Pedro Favaron's presentation aims to reflect on the impacts that ayahuasca tourism has had on the ancestral knowledge of the indigenous peoples of the western Amazon, both at an epistemic level and over the practices of traditional medicine. Since the 1970s, the growing number of foreigners seeking a psychoactive experience in the Peruvian Amazon has encouraged the emergence of new pseudo-shamanic practices, which have become a lucrative business but are completely away from the ancestral dynamics and conceptions linked to the intake of Ayahuasca and traditional medicine. In addition to plotting a historical journey that allows us to understand these transformations, it is intended to mark the differences between the practices of New Age shamanism versus traditional medicine, in order to probe the specificities of the medicine practices of the indigenous peoples of the western Amazon. While denouncing the dangers of new practices, it is important to point out the true contributions of ancestral conceptions of health and healing.
The event is coorganised with the Peruvian Embassy.