Disentangling the ayahuasca boom: local impacts in Western Peruvian Amazonia
September 1, 2016 Joshua Homan 6 citations
Ayahuasca, a psychoactive beverage made from the ayahuasca vine and other plants, has been central to social life for indigenous and mestizo peoples in the western Peruvian Amazon since the early colonial period. Traditionally used for healing, divination, and sorcery, its contemporary global spread began with Jesuit missions in 1638 and intensified after the rubber boom. Since the 1970s, shamanic tourism—primarily from the United States, England, and France—has fueled a multimillion-dollar industry in urban centers like Iquitos and Tarapoto. This diaspora has created local controversies and commodified ayahuasca shamanism, a phenomenon termed the "ayahuasca boom," comparable to historical Amazonian commodity booms.