Future Ayahuasca Care Spaces: An Experimental Speculative Exercise
Vibrant Virtual Brazilian Anthropology January 1, 2025 Pietro Benedito, Isabel Santana de Rose, Emilia Sanabria et al.
As psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) trials advance, clinics offering such treatments are becoming a near-term reality, raising questions about therapeutic modalities, infrastructure, funding, and access. This paper describes the process of designing and holding a speculative space to imagine possible future ayahuasca care spaces. Ayahuasca healing remains largely tied to ritual settings, creating a complex and ambivalent relationship with the broader category of psychedelics and PATs. Through speculation, the authors collaboratively addressed issues of appropriation, commodification, standardization, and pharmaceuticalization of plant medicines, while exploring the more-than-human dimensions of care. The goal was to shift interactions with field interlocutors toward co-laboration and co-re-definition, discussing the creation, parameters, and framework of such a conversation.