Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales Niñez y Juventud
April 13, 2025
Maria Betânia Barbosa Albuquerque
3 citations
The ayahuasca beverage, of indigenous origin and made from a vine and shrub leaves from the Amazon, is used in the Brazilian religion Santo Daime. The study argues, based on the doctrine's own hymns, that daime (ayahuasca) is a teacher and that the religion involves an educational process through which a body of knowledge is circulated and learned. Based on bibliographic, documentary, and field research including interviews with daimistas in Brazil and other countries, the work identifies key knowledges associated with daime: ecological-environmental, cognitive, aesthetic, medicinal, and for peace. The theoretical framework draws on Carlos Rodrigues Brandão's concept of education as culture and Boaventura de Sousa Santos's notion of an 'ecology of knowledges.'
Education Policy Analysis Archives
July 22, 2018
Maria Betânia Barbosa Albuquerque
3 citations
Ayahuasca, a plant-based beverage used in the Santo Daime religion, functions as a non-human teacher in a unique form of education. Followers learn from the plant through ritual consumption, acquiring knowledge that challenges conventional epistemic boundaries. This article examines the educational dimension of daime, the kinds of knowledge it generates, and the epistemological framework required to understand such pedagogy. Drawing on literature about ayahuasca and Santo Daime, as well as oral testimonies from practitioners in Brazil and abroad, the analysis employs a broad concept of education as culture, critiques the epistemic sovereignty of science, and uses the notion of cultural mediators. The article argues that this plant-mediated learning expands what counts as valid knowledge beyond Western scientific paradigms.
Revista Fragmentos de Cultura - Revista Interdisciplinar de Ciências Humanas
January 1, 2014
Maria Betânia Barbosa Albuquerque
2 citations
This article reflects on ayahuasca, an indigenous beverage considered by various user groups to be a teacher plant through which knowledge can be obtained. Drawing on the ideas of Boaventura de Sousa Santos, it analyzes the shamanic epistemology underlying the ayahuasca experience, highlighting its contribution to dissolving boundaries between human/animal and nature/culture, thereby engendering other ways of thinking and knowing reality—other epistemologies.
Interritórios
September 28, 2023
Maria Betânia Barbosa Albuquerque, Gabriel Gonçalves Serafim Silva
1 citation
The article traces the life histories and knowledge pathways of Sebastião Mota and Francisca Gabriel, two leaders of Amazonian religious and educational communities—Santo Daime and Barquinha—centered on the ritual use of ayahuasca (daime). Based on fieldwork and oral history, it highlights alternative learning spaces such as the forest and riverbeds, and an educational process mediated by both human and non-human teachers. The daime beverage, made from teacher plants, is emphasized as a source from which both figures acquired multiple forms of knowledge.