Conference

Pre ICPR Events

About

Conference

Pre ICPR Events

About

Alex Gearin, PhD

The University of Hong Kong

Speaker Bio

Alex K. Gearin, Ph.D., is an medical anthropologist researching psychedelic substance using networks and practices across the globe. His forthcoming book Global Ayahuasca: Wondrous Visions and Modern Worlds (Stanford University Press, 2024) explores the psychoactive plant brew “ayahuasca” in Peru, Australia, and China. His work is featured in Current Anthropology, Social Science and Medicine, Frontiers in Pharmacology, JRAI, and other outlets, and he is co-editor of The World Ayahuasca Diaspora: Controversies and Reinventions (Routledge, 2017). Alex is assistant professor at The University of Hong Kong.

ICPR 2024 Abstract

Psychedelic wonder and awe in socio-cultural context

Wonder is a naturally elusive emotion. It unravels our understandings. People tend to speak of wonder only in a positive light, but the darker sides of experience can be equally wondrous and awe-inspiring when they push our mental models into overdrive. Psychedelics like ayahuasca are known globally for their therapeutic effects, awe-inspiring visions, and hedonic tones—including their beautiful and grotesque sensory worlds—but what is hardly acknowledged is the entanglement between wonder and moral life or moral knowledge. In Amazonia, ayahuasca has concerned normative aspects and assisted people in developing virtues, such as courage, kindness, tranquillity, and joy, or those qualities deemed immoral and toxic and associated with sorcery and witchcraft. Ayahuasca, like wonder and awe, can be morally ambiguous. This talk explores a few ethnographic examples of wondrous ayahuasca narratives to unpack how intense experiences that unravel our understandings of the world can be uplifting, positive, and beautiful, but also grotesque, painful, and terrifying, shedding lightness and darkness on the socio-cultural realities of lived experience.

© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
© 2007-2024 ICPR by OPEN Foundation, Amsterdam, the Netherlands