This timely follow up to the first volume of The World Ayahuasca Diaspora: Reinvention and Controversies explores ayahuasca in the context of classic and contemporary issues in social sciences and the humanities, providing rich material on the bourgeoning expansion of ayahuasca as it situates itself in various circumstances around the globe and reveals its tendency to connect and transform people, beings, networks and ideas. The challenges associated with alternative global religious groups, shamanic tourism industries, and recreational drug milieus, expand to the same degree that the brew itself spreads. In this collection, space is given to discussions on the global intercultural exchange of ayahuasca affecting indigenous modernization, political and moral dimensions of ritual healing, drug policy, religious persecution, public controversies, gender stereotypes, and dilemmas of integration into mainstream society. Ayahuasca’s travels from the Amazon jungle to Western societies and back to the jungle has entailed encounters with different legal and cultural contexts; disparate and competing ideas on authenticity have emerged among ayahuasca drinkers and between them and the state, creating an international patchwork of laws and representations regarding ayahuasca, all deserving of detailed explorations, some of which are provided herein. Cultural appropriation and commodification of indigenous traditions are also highly germane as ayahuasca expands into new sectors of society; it is in this arena that some of the most charged discussions may be found. This book tackles these issues and more in an attempt to capture the arguments and proofs of some of the most qualified ongoing research in social sciences regarding the vine. The rapid rise of ayahuasca in the public imagination has created an urgent need for ethnographically sound and unbiased reports and analysis such as we hope is provided here in this second volume. We hope you enjoy reading it!
Beatriz Caiuby Labate and Clancy Cavnar