Reinventing Ayahuasca
Ayahuasca is becoming more and more known worldwide. More and more people are traveling to the Amazon to take it, but also more and more people are traveling to the northern countries or Andean or coastal cities. Some people talk about extractivism, but the situation is more complex. How can we think about it in broader ways?
In this chapter of Jardines y Laberintos, we have invited Argentine researcher, professor, and translator Ana Gretel Echazú Böschemeier. Ana did her doctoral thesis in anthropology with ayahuasca healers in the Peruvian Amazon. She has worked in ethnographic fields in northern Argentina, northeastern Brazil, the Peruvian Amazon, and currently in urban areas of Southeast Asia. She is the mother of two children and has explored various topics in human rights/feminisms from a perspective that proposes to work with forms of South-South decolonization of academic knowledge.
Ana proposes to rethink the relationship with plants, especially those called plants of power or masters, from a perspective that privileges contexts. It is the only way to depatriarchalize and decolonize this relationship. That would allow us to avoid extractivist practices without increasing the criminalization, persecution, and stigma towards plants and the people who traditionally hold the knowledge around them.
🌿 ‘‘Jardínes y Laberintos: Conversaciones sobre dr0g4s, políticas y violencias’ is an interview program to discuss cases and experiences around substances. It is hosted by @Marcela.vallejo from the VIST team, and you will find it on our YouTube channel.
