O processo de patrimonialização da ayahuasca no Brasil: Conquistas, Disputas e Tensões. UFBA-PPGCS, Bahia, 2017.
Disputes and Tensions
The present work is a reflection on the process of patrimonialization of ayahuasca in progress in IPHAN (National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute). In our analysis, we sought to privilege its behind-the-scenes elements, as a focus on the articulations and relationships between the groups that are actors of the process, as well as in their strategies. To this end, the ethnographic method was used combining bibliographical references, documentaries, interviews and fieldwork. The request for registration of ayahuasca as Brazilian immaterial heritage is a strategic attempt by ayahuasca actors to promote a new understanding at the state level of their religious and cultural practices, seen until then, as a phenomenon related to “drug use” in Brazil. Shortly before, such practices have also been persecuted, stigmatized and associated with black magic or “Voodoo”. In this sense, it is another stage in the process of public
legitimation of these practices in the eyes of the authorities and civil society whose critical events are quite similar to those that have passed religions of African matrix and especially Candomblé. The application for registration of ayahuasca, until then, has been shown to be a complex process; full of achievements, but also filled with tensions and symbolic disputes between the actors, who are fighting to decide “what is desired to be registered” while immaterial cultural good. In this arena of conflicts and negotiations, they are protagonists of the process; the CICLU – Alto Santo, Barquinha, UDV, CEFLURIS, Neoayahuasqueiros, Acrean Indigenous Peoples, as well as members of Acrean Public Power, MINC (Ministry of Culture) and IPHAN.