.jpg)
Science, Technology, and Medicine Seminar 2021-22 Series Indigenous Healers and Ayahuasca Tourists in a Capitalist WorldDATE: April 29, 2022 (Friday)
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: Alex Gearin (Assistant Professor, Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, University of Hong Kong) Alex K. Gearin, Ph.D., is a medical anthropologist with a background researching psychedelic substance using communities in Peru, Australia, and China. He has published ethnographic research on the intercultural ethics of medical tourism, spirituality and individualism among psychedelic healing groups, and sensory and ontological aspects of shamanism. He is Assistant Professor of Medical Humanities at the Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, Hong Kong University. Discussant: Glenn Shepard (Medical Anthropologist & Research Associate, the American Museum of Natural History, New York) Glenn Shepard is an ethnobotanist, anthropologist, photographer and film maker, currently a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and staff researcher at the Goeldi Museum in Brazil. He has written on topics ranging from shamanism and medical anthropology to human ecology and indigenous modernity. Moderator: Dr. Laura Meek (Assistant Professor, Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, HKU)
Hosted by: Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, HKU Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, LKS Faculty of Medicine, HKU All are welcome. Please register and the Zoom link will be sent to you prior to the event. For enquiries, please contact Mr. Adrian Kam by email at adkam@hku.hk or by phone at +852 39172867. Visit our website: https://chm.hku.hk/
|
