Primitivist medicine and capitalist anxieties in ayahuasca tourism Peru

At an ayahuasca tourism centre in Peru, Shipibo healing practices of curing and sorcery have adapted to international clients seeking primitivist healing. Sorcery does not target clients but operates among healers who capitalize on guests’ rejection of modern life while working in conditions of economic scarcity and poverty. Ayahuasca tourists generally do not believe in sorcery, yet their presence both generates and negates the local moral economy of sorcery in new ways. The article reveals a paradox: guests purge anxious desires for capital accumulation, the very desires healers fulfill when curing them.

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Abstract

Abstract Analysing healing practices at an ayahuasca tourism centre in Peru, this article illustrates how Shipibo practices of curing and sorcery have adapted to the demands of international clients searching for primitivist healing experiences. At the core of this adaption is the thorny issue of occult power and its relation to capital accumulation. Sorcery here does not serve clients but is manifest among healers working to capitalize on the guests’ primitivist rejections of modern life while operating in environments of economic scarcity and ambient poverty. Ayahuasca tourists do not request and generally do not believe in sorcery, but their very presence generates and negates the local moral economy of sorcery in novel ways. The article explores a paradoxical aspect of ayahuasca tourism wherein guests purge similar anxious desires for capital accumulation that healers achieve when curing them.