Michael Seddon | La Trobe University (original) (raw)

Papers by Michael Seddon

This dissertation employs the concept of ‘ayahuasca pilgrimage’ to examine ritual healing practic... more This dissertation employs the concept of ‘ayahuasca pilgrimage’ to examine ritual healing practices and aspects of everyday social life for spiritual seekers residing in the town of Pisac, in the Sacred Valley of the Peruvian Andes. Ayahuasca is a plant medicine ‘brew’ with origins in the shamanic traditions of Indigenous and mestizo people of the Amazon. In recent decades, ‘ayahuasca tourism’ has attracted increasing numbers of foreigners to Peru, who travel there in search of spiritual and deeply personal healing experiences. Ayahuasca has expanded outside of the Amazon, as exemplified in the town of Pisac that has become a place of pilgrimage for those interested in ayahuasca, as well as Inca heritage, local ‘mystical tourism’, and numerous New Age healing modalities. Such practices, and the emergence of the transient ‘gringo community’ that has developed around them, raise critically entwined issues of cultural appropriation and social inequality, particularly in relation to the local population, examined through themes of ‘contestation’ addressed in this work. As explored here, ayahuasca pilgrimage encompasses liminal ritual events including qualities of communitas that are oriented around personal healing and transformation. Participants also view healing as entailing a process of ‘integration’ that bridges ritual and everyday life, requiring individual responsibility towards enacting change. While including deeply meaningful and often efficacious experiences for those involved, such journeys entail tensions arising through perceived social inequalities and cultural differences with locals, that members of the ‘gringo community’ contend with yet have few solutions to. On these terms, ayahuasca pilgrims inhabit an ambivalent position as outsiders. This thesis provides anthropological insights into the formations of spiritual tourism and the ‘gringo community’ in Pisac. This work contributes to scholarship on ayahuasca, pilgrimage, tourism, and lifestyle migration ethnography.

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew that has origins in the indigenous traditions of the Amazon regi... more Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew that has origins in the indigenous traditions of the Amazon regions of South America. It is known as a healing medicine that is deeply embedded in shamanic practices and spiritual beliefs. In the last few decades the use of Ayahuasca has developed outside of the Amazon and
has since become a transnational phenomenon, crossing boundaries between Western and non-Western healing contexts. This increasing popularity has attracted a multidisciplinary array of research interests, of which anthropology has significantly contributed. It has become evident for those engaged in
Ayahuasca research that Western epistemology is limited by its longstanding constraints of objectivism, rationalism and scientific materialism. In this thesis, I provide an analysis of Ayahuasca to outline the spiritual centrality of its use and appropriation, especially in context of healing beliefs and practices. I apply
the concept of neo-enchantment to outline how the globalization of Ayahuasca challenges the hegemony of rationalism and secularism in industrialized society. This is achieved through reference to recent Ayahuasca research and analysis that seek to overcome limitations of Western epistemology, through
dialectically synthesizing scientific and indigenous paradigms of healing and knowledge. While focused on Ayahuasca research, the outcomes of this thesis relates to broader issues in the social sciences and beyond, and raises some important questions for future research.

This dissertation employs the concept of ‘ayahuasca pilgrimage’ to examine ritual healing practic... more This dissertation employs the concept of ‘ayahuasca pilgrimage’ to examine ritual healing practices and aspects of everyday social life for spiritual seekers residing in the town of Pisac, in the Sacred Valley of the Peruvian Andes. Ayahuasca is a plant medicine ‘brew’ with origins in the shamanic traditions of Indigenous and mestizo people of the Amazon. In recent decades, ‘ayahuasca tourism’ has attracted increasing numbers of foreigners to Peru, who travel there in search of spiritual and deeply personal healing experiences. Ayahuasca has expanded outside of the Amazon, as exemplified in the town of Pisac that has become a place of pilgrimage for those interested in ayahuasca, as well as Inca heritage, local ‘mystical tourism’, and numerous New Age healing modalities. Such practices, and the emergence of the transient ‘gringo community’ that has developed around them, raise critically entwined issues of cultural appropriation and social inequality, particularly in relation to the local population, examined through themes of ‘contestation’ addressed in this work. As explored here, ayahuasca pilgrimage encompasses liminal ritual events including qualities of communitas that are oriented around personal healing and transformation. Participants also view healing as entailing a process of ‘integration’ that bridges ritual and everyday life, requiring individual responsibility towards enacting change. While including deeply meaningful and often efficacious experiences for those involved, such journeys entail tensions arising through perceived social inequalities and cultural differences with locals, that members of the ‘gringo community’ contend with yet have few solutions to. On these terms, ayahuasca pilgrims inhabit an ambivalent position as outsiders. This thesis provides anthropological insights into the formations of spiritual tourism and the ‘gringo community’ in Pisac. This work contributes to scholarship on ayahuasca, pilgrimage, tourism, and lifestyle migration ethnography.

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew that has origins in the indigenous traditions of the Amazon regi... more Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew that has origins in the indigenous traditions of the Amazon regions of South America. It is known as a healing medicine that is deeply embedded in shamanic practices and spiritual beliefs. In the last few decades the use of Ayahuasca has developed outside of the Amazon and
has since become a transnational phenomenon, crossing boundaries between Western and non-Western healing contexts. This increasing popularity has attracted a multidisciplinary array of research interests, of which anthropology has significantly contributed. It has become evident for those engaged in
Ayahuasca research that Western epistemology is limited by its longstanding constraints of objectivism, rationalism and scientific materialism. In this thesis, I provide an analysis of Ayahuasca to outline the spiritual centrality of its use and appropriation, especially in context of healing beliefs and practices. I apply
the concept of neo-enchantment to outline how the globalization of Ayahuasca challenges the hegemony of rationalism and secularism in industrialized society. This is achieved through reference to recent Ayahuasca research and analysis that seek to overcome limitations of Western epistemology, through
dialectically synthesizing scientific and indigenous paradigms of healing and knowledge. While focused on Ayahuasca research, the outcomes of this thesis relates to broader issues in the social sciences and beyond, and raises some important questions for future research.