An Amazonian shamanic brew in Australia: ayahuasca healing and individualism
The University of Queensland November 20, 2015 Alexander Gearin 6 citations
Neoshamanic ayahuasca drinkers in Australia experience trance as a radical reconfiguration of the senses and body, which enables them to reshape cultural ideals and everyday ethical practices. The ethnographic research shows that during trance, participants' sense of self shifts between dividual and individual modes of personhood, where the 'I' is constituted by human and nonhuman persons. These experiences of healing and wisdom are embedded in a critical cosmology that is overdetermined by Western individualism, revealing how relational personhood operates within capitalist society.