The Internationalization of Peruvian Vegetalismo

The expansion, diversification, and internationalization of Peruvian vegetalismo involves outsiders traveling to Peru for ayahuasca, foreigners who became curanderos, and Peruvian ayahuasqueros holding workshops for urban middle-class clients abroad. The chapter identifies transnational networks and circuits that promote migration and the global flow of people and sacred technologies. It argues this phenomenon is not mere commodification of indigenous spirituality or neocolonialism, but a product of deliberate local strategies to adapt to changing socioeconomic conditions. Creative translations occur on both sides, with foreign references dynamically incorporated and reappropriated under vegetalismo's logic. Local curandero practices can no longer be considered apart from their interactions with foreigners or global-local articulations.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract This chapter charts the expansion, diversification, and internationalization of Peruvian vegetalismo. Outsiders traveling to Peru in search of ayahuasca, gringos who themselves became curanderos, and Peruvian ayahuasqueros who travel to hold workshops for urban middle-class clients abroad are considered. The study identifies contours of transnational networks and the circuits that promote migration and flux of people and “sacred technologies” on a global scale. It is argued that this phenomenon should not be understood as mere commodification of indigenous spirituality, nor as neocolonialism, but as a product of deliberate local strategies to adapt to changing socioeconomic conditions. Creative translations are performed on both sides. Foreign references are dynamically incorporated and reappropriated under the logic of vegetalismo. The chapter proposes that it is no longer possible to consider the local practices of the curanderos apart from their interactions with foreigners, or separate from articulations between the local and the global.