Glauber Loures de Assis has a Ph.D. in sociology from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He is also a Research Associate at the Nucleus for Interdisciplinary Studies of Psychoactives (NEIP) and co-founder of the Center of Sociology Studies Antônio Augusto Pereira Prates (CESAP). He has developed research on Santo Daime groups from Brazil and Europe and has also studied the sociology of religion from a wider perspective. His main interests include the ayahuasca religions, the New Religious Movements (NRMs), the internationalization of the Brazilian religions, and drug use in contemporary society.
Alhena Caicedo Fernández is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology at Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. She completed her BA in anthropology at Universidad Nacional de Colombia; her first MA in social anthropology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in France; her second MA in ethnographic and documentary film at Paris X – Nanterre; and, last but not least, her PhD in social anthropology at EHESS, France. She is a member of the Latin American think tank RaizAL. Her research has focused on the expansion of the yagecero field in Colombia and Latin America and the transformation of yage Neoshamanism, heritagization processes, and the social uses of traditional indigenous medicine. Among her most recent publications is her book La alteridad radical que cura: neochamanismos yajeceros en Colombia [The Radical Otherness that Heals: Yage Neoshamanism in Colombia] (Universidad de los Andes, 2015).
Carl Kevin Carew is a Guyanese ethno-botanist who studied agriculture and botany at the Botanical Garden School in New York. He worked at the National Parks Commission in Guyana and has put into effect projects related to the sustainable management of agriculture/aquaculture and waste management in the East Berbice Corentyne River in Guyana. He has also participated in projects in several permaculture spaces in Brazil and Venezuela. He investigated the local uses of medicinal plants in the Lowland Peruvian Amazon and how these uses connect to the architecture of mind from an experiential approach. He is currently building agricultural landscapes for medicinal and aromatic plants, distilling hydrosols and essential oils, and teaching about herbal medicines, sustainability, and the interrelationship between plants and culture at the CocoYuyo Social Project in Natal, RN, Brazil.
Clancy Cavnar has a doctorate in clinical psychology (PsyD) from John F. Kennedy University. She currently works at a dual-diagnosis residential drug treatment center in San Francisco and is a research associate of the Nucleus for Interdisciplinary Studies of Psychoactives (NEIP). She combines an eclectic array of interests and activities as clinical psychologist, artist, and researcher. She has a master’s in fine arts in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and a master’s in counseling from San Francisco State University. She is author and co-author of articles in several peer-reviewed journals and co-editor, with Beatriz Caiuby Labate, of six books, among them, Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2014). For more information, see: www.neip.info/index.php/content/view/1438.html
Matthew Conrad is a PhD candidate in anthropology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, for which he is researching the relationship between health and well-being in Shipibo culture and ongoing expansion of ayahuasca tourism in the Pucallpa, Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon.
Ana Gretel Echazú Böschemeier is an Argentinian feminist anthropologist. She graduated in Anthropology at the Universidad Nacional de Salta (Salta, Argentina), completed her master’s at the Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Norte (RN, Brazil), and achieved her PhD at the Universidade de Brasília (DF, Brazil). She has been doing long-term ethnographic fieldwork with indigenous storytellers in Northern Argentina, mestizo curanderos in the Peruvian Amazon, and women activists from rural Afro-descendant communities in Northeastern Brazil during the last 15 years. She engages a compromised exercise of anthropology through her interest in the intersections between gender, race-ethnicity, body, and health in Latin American contexts. Currently, she is a post-doctoral researcher and teacher at the Department of Collective Health – Departamento de Saúde Coletiva – of the Universidade Federal de Rio Grande do Norte (Natal, RN, Brazil). She also researches and teaches sustainable and ethical approaches to medicinal plants through the CocoYuyo Social Project (Natal, RN, Brazil).
Alex K. Gearin has a PhD in anthropology from the University of Queensland (UQ), Brisbane, Australia. His PhD dissertation involves an ethnographic study of ayahuasca use in Australia and focuses on sensory, medical, and ethical themes of ritual practice and social organisation. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and Ethnology, Xiamen University, Fujian Province, China. He is co-editor, with Beatriz Labate and Clancy Cavnar, of The World Ayahuasca Diaspora: Reinvention and Controversies (Routledge 2017). He is the Founder of the Online ayahuasca learning hub Kahpi.net.
Ilana Seltzer Goldstein is Associate Professor in the Art History Department at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP). She is the author and co-author of four books, one special-edition journal, and several peer-reviewed articles. Goldstein was co-founder of PROA – Revista de Antropologia e Arte [Journal of Anthropology and Art], dedicated to the interface between arts, cultural heritage, and the social sciences (www.revistaproa.com. br/05/). She was also co-curator of large-scale exhibitions, among which are “Jorge, Amado e universal,” about the Brazilian best-selling writer Jorge Amado, which was held in São Paulo and Salvador in 2012; and “Dreamtime: the contemporary art of aboriginal Australians,” which showed in São Paulo, Fortaleza, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and Curitiba in 2016 and 2017. Her main areas of interest are anthropology of art, indigenous arts, cultural identity representation in art and literature, and cultural public policies. For more information, see: http://buscatextual.cnpq.br/buscatextual/visualizacv.do?id=K4794419P5.
Jonathan Hobbs read Natural Sciences at Cambridge University where his dissertation looked at the medical history of psychedelics. He went on to study Science, Technology, and Medicine in Society at University College London, Imperial College London, and the Wellcome Trust. His research interests include the philosophy of psychedelic consciousness and the intersecting roles of science, governance, law, and the public in the history of drugs control.
Beatriz Caiuby Labate has a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. Her main areas of interest are the study of psychoactive substances, drug policy, shamanism, ritual, and religion. Currently, she is Visiting Professor at the Center for Research and Post Graduate Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS-Occidente) in Guadalajara, Mexico, and Adjunct Faculty at the East-West Psychology Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, USA. She is also co-founder of the Drugs, Politics, and Culture Collective in Mexico (http://drogaspoliticacultura.net) and of the Interdisciplinary Group for Psychoactive Studies (NEIP) in Brazil, as well as editor of NEIP’s website (www.neip.info). Since 2016, she has been Chief Editor at Chacruna (http://chacruna.net). She is author, co-author, and co-editor of 17 books, one special-edition journal, and several peer-reviewed articles. For more information, see: http://bialabate.net/
Silvia Mesturini Cappo has a BA degree in social sciences from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, a master’s degree in the social science of religion from the Ecole Pratique d’Hautes Etudes of Paris (EPHE-Sorbonne), and a PhD in anthropology from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, obtained in 2010. Her thesis, “Espaces Chamaniques en Movement: Itinéraires Vécus et Géographies Multiples” (Shamanic Spaces on the Move: Life Itineraries and Multiple Geographies between Europe and South America) is based on multi-sited fieldwork, including European (France, Belgium, Holland, and Spain) and South American locations (Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, and Argentina) conducted between 2004 and 2010. Her research on ayahuasca rituals and their internationalization is part of a wider interest in shamanic practice at large and its recent developments. Her ethnography has a special focus on ritual interaction, cultural translation, the making of spirits, the interactive construction of knowledge and meaning, as well as the possibility of interspecies relationships and shared ways of life.
Juan Scuro is a member of the National System of Researchers, Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación (SNI-ANII, Uruguay) and an associate lecturer of cultural anthropology at Instituto de Formación en Educación Social (IFES), National Public Education Administration (ANEP), Uruguay. He has a PhD and a master`s degree in social anthropology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and degree in anthropology at the Universidad de la República (UdelaR), in Montevideo, Uruguay. His doctoral dissertation, “Neoshamanism in Latin America: A cartography from Uruguay,” addresses the processes of creation and transformation of neoshamanism in Uruguay through its origins in Brazil, Peru, and Mexico. It analyzes the interpellations that this tradition produces in the hegemonic narrative of the state-nation by identifying transformation processes of subjectivities, histories and memories. His research areas are religion, spirituality and drugs. He is author and co-author of several chapters of books, and academic articles about ayahuasca, cannabis, secularism, neoshamanism and afro-brazilian religions.
Gillian Watt obtained her first degree at the University of Cambridge, UK (Clare College), in social and political sciences with special interest in Latin America. She has had an interest in the ritual use of ayahausca since doing fieldwork with the Ashaninka people of the Ene region in Peru. A master’s at the Department of the Study of Religions, University College Cork, Ireland, resulted in the first study of the presence of the ayahuasca religion Santo Daime in the Republic of Ireland (see DISKUS www.religiousstudiesproject.com). Awarded a doctoral-level research project through Academic Mobility for Inclusive Development in Latin America (Erasmus Mundus), she worked on an investigation exploring the potentials of collaboration between alternative communities (e.g., “eco-villages”) and indigenous communities (Mbya Guarani) in Misiones north-east Argentina. At present, she is continuing her PhD research at University College Cork, documenting various aspects of Santo Daime and related religious trends in the Republic of Ireland.