Medicinas da floresta: conexões e conflitos cosmo-ontológicos

Abstract

Resumo Neste trabalho proponho descrever aspectos de um recente movimento em torno das chamadas “medicinas da floresta”, principalmente o nixi pae (ayahuasca) dos Huni Kuĩ (Kaxinawá). A proposta inclui o acompanhamento de trânsitos contínuos entre a “floresta” e a “cidade” do próprio nixi pae, dos chamados pajés e de grupos ayahuasqueiros emergentes, evidenciando conexões e conflitos ontológicos. Uma contribuição possível deste trabalho é alimentar reflexões no campo ayahuasqueiro a partir de uma proposição cosmopolítica (Stengers, 2007), que buscará tomar o nixi pae como uma tecnologia de conectividade. Assim, espera-se desdobrar a semântica de termos como cura e medicina por meio da pragmática dos coletivos (de pajés, substâncias, espíritos) em ação: que efeitos estes geram quando agem em rede, o que movimentam, o que fortalecem, o que é deixado para trás. O nixi pae aparecerá então como peça-chave na ativação de coletivos ontologicamente heterogêneos, abrindo possibilidades para encontros com a alteridade em tentativas de composição de espaços de coexistência.

Overcoming epistemic injustices in the biomedical study of ayahuasca: Towards ethical and sustainable regulation

“…During the exploration in the Amazon in the 19th and 20th centuries, ayahuasca also became the central sacrament of syncretic Brazilian religions: Barquinha, Santo Daime, and União do Vegetal (UDV). These practices, both indigenous and religious, were originally restricted to the Amazon region, but in recent decades they have rapidly expanded around the world in what has been called a "diffusion of the sacred" by indigenous people (OPIRJ et al, 2017) or simply "globalization" by Westerners (Sánchez & Bouso, 2015), with important cultural and political consequences, which are currently widely studied and debated (Labate & Feeney, 2012;Labate et al, 2016;Meneses, 2018).…”

“…Finally, it is also possible that the disciplines of biomedicine and psychiatry open themselves to the findings of medical anthropology, to the debates on health and disease in different cultural contexts, and to specific ethnomedical concepts, (e.g., panema, nissum: Da Matta, 1973;Meneses, 2018;or (xawara: Kopenawa & Alberts, 2013) to identify transcultural continuities and ontological equivocations. The complementarity between anthropology, psychoanalysis, and psychiatry is one of the challenges of ethnopsychiatry (Laplantine, 1998;Nathan & Stengers, 2018).…”

“…The use of ayahuasca for therapeutic purposes is not new. Rather, it is a very ancient practice, probably dating back millennia according to indigenous peoples, and some centuries according to Western studies (Brabec de Mori, 2011; George et al, 2020; Miller et al, 2019; Ogalde et al, 2009; Samorini, 2019). Noted by naturalists like Richard Spruce in the 19th century, ethnobotanists like Antonio Maria Barriga-Villalba and Richard Evans Schultes in the first half of the 20th century, and many other scholars ever since (Schultes, 1968; Stafford, 2013), the therapeutic use of ayahuasca is widespread among the indigenous people of the Amazon basin, which plays an important role in ayahuasca's globalization.…”

“…Ayahuasca and Yagé are the brews most used nowadays but they are not the oldest ones. The seeds of Anadenanthera , for instance, have been used as inhalants such as cebil , vilca , and yopo , and they are also used as an additive in fermented beverages (Miller et al, 2019; Torres, 2017).…”

On epistemic injustices, biomedical research with Indigenous people, and the legal regulation of ayahuasca in Brazil: The production of new injustices?

“…This stance not only challenges the assumptions of scientific epistemology, but it also puts in check the anthropocentric values that guide biomedical research. Privileging Indigenous epistemologies would imply, therefore, "disrupting hegemonic knowledges" (Dev, 2018), and considering distinct notions of body, disease, and healing (Fotiou, 2021;Meneses, 2018) that question the very authority and validation criteria of neurosciences. In the author's argument, biomedicine paradoxically becomes the ultimate criterion to give responses to the critique of biomedicine.…”