In HEALING IN THE LAB ethnographic research was carried out in international psychedelic spaces with a specific focus on Brazilian psychedelic science. The controversies surrounding the building of intellectual property on psychedelics were analyzed and training program in psychedelic-assisted therapy was undertaken.
Key results:
- Sanabria (2021). "Vegetative Value: promissory horizons of therapeutic innovation in the global circulation of Ayahuasca." BioSocieties (16)387-410
- Benedito & Sanabria (forthcoming) "Psychedelic Nation? (De)Provincializing 'the' psychedelic renaissance from Brazil." Science, Technology & Human Values.
- Dumit, & Sanabria, (2022). “Set, Setting and Clinical Trials - Colonial Technologies and Psychedelics" in The Palgrave Handbook of the Anthropology of Technology
- Sanabria, (2020). "(Psychedelics) Beyond the “Neuro”." Cultural Anthropology
In HEALING IN THE CITY ethnographic research was conducted in urban centres in Europe and the Americas. We focused on the somatic dimensions of ayahuasca experiences rather than the cognitive dimensions which dominate existing literature.
Key developments include theorizing the highly gendered labour of “space holding” as a form of care and theorizing the settler colonial underpinnings of (psychedelic) set and “setting,” and the adoption of the polysemic Afro-Brazilian concept of Encruzilhada (crossroads) to highlight the paradoxes and frictions of encounter.
Key results:
- Talin. 2024. “Ayahuasca Crossroads: An ethnography of the circulation of Ayahuasca rituals between urban Brazil and Europe” PhD Dissertation.
- Benedito, & Valêncio (forth) “Acolhimento e cuidado no Santo Daime”, In: Santo Daime Alteridades.
- Isabel S. de Rose 2022. “Forest Medicines, kinship alliances and equivocations in the contemporary dialogues between Santo Daime and the Yawanawá.” Anthropology of Consciousness 33(2): 279-306
- Sanabria 2021 « Imagining Otherwise Encounters After Epistemicide » Sacred Plants in the Americas International Conference
In HEALING IN THE FOREST ethnographic research was conducted with Shipibo Konibo and Huni Kuin collaborators. The project’s Scientific and Ethical Committee included two Indigenous ritual experts with whom work in sub-projects “Lab” and “City” was discussed throughout.
Major achievements include the development of a novel methodological approach of researching ‘with’ rather than ‘about’ plants, the organisation of a multisensory immersive intercultural workshop leading to an analysis of the soundscape that accompany the Huni Kuin ayahuasca ritual as a “vibration” or the gathering of a corpus of ethnographic interviews with Indigenous women on their experiences of ayahuasca.
Key results
- Lopez Sanchez; Mesturini & Sanabria, (2024) Trabajar con las plantas que tienen madres. Diálogos con un onanya shipibo.
- Chartier, Sales, & Sanabria, (forth) « La vibration qui unit ». Terrain
- Sanabria & Mesturini 2023 “Plotting PhytoFutures.” American Anthropologist