Emilia Sanabria: Healing Encounters - Ayahuasca & The Politics of Knowledge

Emilia Sanabria examines the role of cultural and social anthropology in the current psychedelic renaissance. The conversation highlights how traditional plant medicine practices are being entangled with broader colonial and post-colonial political processes, suggesting that these ancient systems are being continually reimagined within modern contexts. Social and political forces drive the structuring of scientific evidence and shape how distinct cultures define concepts like healing and efficacy. An anthropological lens helps uncover how current psychedelic practices, whether in formal laboratory settings or communal settings in the Amazon, form part of a long, ongoing history of cultural and post-colonial encounters.