This contribution examines protests by Shuar people in the Ecuadorian Amazon during the summer of 2015 in favour of the construction of a road through their territory. Can the ontological turn help us understand such events? Debates around the ontological turn have hinged around its potential contribution to the analysis of environmental challenges and political conflicts. In this article, I argue that central concepts from the ontological turn – such as animism (Descola 2005) or perspectivism (Viveiros de Castro 2004) – may add nuance but not substance to anthropological understandings of environmental conflicts. I focus on the stakes of these conflicts, the construction of alliances, and the tactics used by the different stakeholders. Taking to heart one of the core premises of the ontological turn, we may think that Western concepts of “nature” and “culture” may hinder our understanding of indigenous Amazonian people’s participation in these conflicts. I argue on the contrary that efforts to overcome these concepts may precisely risk concealing or distorting the actions and statements of indigenous people involved in the conflict.

This article addresses the sacredness of Ayahuasca from the perspective of the global shamanic vocation. If encounters with Ayahuasca are said to revitalize forms of sacredness in contemporary societies, this is perhaps clearest in cases where individuals understand themselves to be called to lead ceremonies. Recognizing the global scale of Ayahuasca shamanism, we compare facilitators of ceremonies in two societies to discern differences and similarities in how Ayahuasca vocations exist in differently modernized societies: Peru, a predominantly Catholic society with a substantial Indigenous Amazonian population and an active Ayahuasca shamanism tourism sector, and Denmark, a secular society in Northern Europe, where Ayahuasca is illegal. Building on recent reappraisals of Weber’s reflection on vocation and Durkheim’s theory of the sacred, we argue that being called by Ayahuasca to follow shamanic vocations in contemporary societies leads to tensions around the need to both justify and resist the rationalization of Ayahuasca.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract