BIP Summer School Cagliari, 1-5 July 2025, Ayahuasca, Amazonian Practices and Western Practices
Faced with a growing interest from the Western world in the ancestral Amazonian practice of ayahuasca, we propose a course characterized by a precise transdisciplinary vision that highlights points of contact and contrasts. Faced with a growing interest from the Western world in the ancestral Amazonian practice of ayahuasca, we propose a course characterized by a precise transdisciplinary vision that highlights points of contact and contrasts. contexts, sensitivity is required. The perception of reality in the Amazon is fundamentally different from that of the West, especially in the relationship between nature and culture and between humans and non-humans. In this scenario, the division between the disciplines that our structure of knowledge has organized seems to take on an arbitrary character. We firmly believe that bringing together knowledge from different contexts and fields on an equal footing can only benefit the renewal of a dialogue between cultures in the contemporary global context. During the Summer School “Ayahuasca, Amazonian practices and Western practices”, which will be held in Cagliari from 1 to 5 July 2025, Amazonian culture, literature together with pharmacological sciences will be at the centre of an in-depth discussion. Further perspectives will be provided by psychology, where the use of ayahuasca is paving the way for innovative treatments, and anthropology. The presence of an expert in traditional Amazonian medicine, who offers psychophysical treatments based on ayahuasca in Peru, together with local experts deeply integrated into their context, will guarantee approaches that are as much as possible from within their knowledge. Ethics and cultural appropriations will be discussed in the hope of triggering a debate on community practices of sharing knowledge rather than intellectual theft. The course includes the use of audiovisual material such as documentaries and films, debate spaces and round tables.
Coordinators:
Riccardo Badini (Department of Humanities, Languages and Cultural Heritage, UniCa)
Maria Antonietta De Luca (Department of Biomedical Sciences, UniCa)
Preliminary program
Tuesday 1st July
• 5.00 p.m. – Riccardo Badini (UniCa): Opening ssession. Ayahuasca Transdisciplinary Approach and Indigenous Policy Perspectives
• 6.00 pm – Video projection and discussion
Wednesday 2nd July
• 9.30 – Marco Leonti (UniCa): Principles of ethnopharmacology
• 10.30 – Josué Medina (UNMSM, Peru), Stefano Pau (UniCa): Visión y mediación en “La vorágine” (1924) de José Eustasio Rivera, “Ayahuasca” (1939) de Arturo Burga Freitas y “Sangama” (1942) de Arturo D. Hernández
• 15.30 – Luca d’Ascia (Scuola Normale Superiore): Ayahuasca e the arrow of time
•16.30– Video projection
Thursday 3 July
• 9.30 – Riccardo Badini (UniCa): “Las tres mitades de Ino moxo” by César Calvo, Amazonian ontology and ayahuasca
• 10.30 – Laura Casu (UniCa): Extraction methodologies in folk medicine
• 11.30 – Emilio Ambrosio Flores (UNED, Madrid): Pharmacology of ayahuasca
• 15.30 – Claudia Zuddas (UniCa): Kené shipibo and cultural appropriations
• 16.30 – Carmen Mendieta (traditional Amazonian physician, Peru): I am a woman and a traditional Amazonian doctor (Her experience)
Friday 4 July
• 9.30 – Eline Pottie (UGhent): Toxicology of ayahuasca and psychedelics
• 10.30 – Maria Antonietta De Luca (UniCa): Therapeutic potential of psychedelics
• 11.30 – Video projection
• 15.30- Piero Cipriano (Psychiatrist and author): Ayahuasca between rebirth and psychedelic asylum
• 16.30 – Roger Rumrill (Autore amazzonico): Amazonía como supermercado espiritual (Amazon as a spiritual supermarket)
• 17.30 – Omar Aramayo (Author and Peruvian poet): Ayahuasca and artistic creation (Ayahuasca y creación artística)
Saturday 5 July
• 9.00 a.m.-12.00 p.m. – Educational excursion on the “Sella del Diavolo”
Audiovisual screenings scheduled during the Summer School:
• The Medicine of Forgiveness
• Ícaros
• Blueberry: The by Delia Ackerman (2001)