Horizons 2016: BIA LABATE, Ph.D. & ELLEN SPIRO "The Field of Ayahuasca Research: A Retrospective"

SYNOPSIS: In this special context of the 10-year retrospective of Horizons, I will review my own research and efforts to help build an interdisciplinary field of ayahuasca research. I will focus on some of the main topics that I have written about and are addressed on several collections that I have edited, such as: traditional drug use, urban uses, health, public debate, regulation, human rights, internationalization and cultural reinvention. I will also revisit the main controversies with which I have engaged in this field, and reflect on the role of science and researchers in the public debate. Next, I will provide a general overview of the main characteristics, tendencies, and perspectives of the field of ayahuasca studies, point out the gaps in this discussion, and speculate on future directions. In the second part of this presentation, the filmmaker Ellen Spiro and I will show a sample of the film The Sacred Plant Chronicles, a work in progress that explores current stories about ayahuasca, peyote and mushrooms. We will conclude with a dialogue with the public about the future direction of this project.

BIA LABAT
E, Ph.D.Visiting Professor | Center for Research and Post Graduate Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), in Guadalajara, Mexico
Co-founder for and web editor | Nucleus for Interdisciplinary studies of Psychoactives (NEIP)

Biography: Beatriz Caiuby Labate has a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil. Her main areas of interest are the study of psychoactive substances, drug policy, shamanism, ritual, and religion. She is Visiting Professor at the Center for Research and Post Graduate Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), in Guadalajara, Mexico. She is also co-founder of the Nucleus for Interdisciplinary Studies of Psychoactives (NEIP), and editor of NEIP’s website (http://www.neip.info). She is author, co-author, and co-editor of fifteen books, one special-edition journal, and several peer-reviewed articles. For more information, see bialabate.net.

ELLEN SPIRO
Professor of Radio, TV, Film | University of Texas in Austin

BIOGRAPHY: Ellen Spiro is a Professor of Radio-TV-Film at the University of Texas in Austin and a boundary-pushing documentary filmmaker. Her work champions mavericks and renegades with wit, delight, and emotional depth. Her documentaries include Diana's Hair Ego, Greetings From Out Here, Roam Sweet Home, Atomic Ed & the Black Hole, Are the Kids Alright?, Troop 15OO, Fixing the Future and, co-directed with Phil Donahue, Body of War, shortlisted for an Academy Award. Emerging as a visual artist during post graduate work within the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, Spiro’s films are today found in permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, UCLA Film and Television Archive, the Peabody Collection of The Paley Center for Media, and the New York Public Library. She has been awarded fellowships from Guggenheim, Rockefeller and National Endowment for the Arts. She also has won two Gracie Awards for Outstanding Director and Outstanding Documentary for Troop 1500, from the Foundation of American Women in Radio and Television. Spiro studied at the University of Virginia, and earned her Master’s Degree in Media Studies at S.U.N.Y Buffalo. Her films have been broadcast and premiered in prestigious film festivals around the world.

Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics is an annual forum that examines the role of psychedelic drugs in science, medicine, culture and spirituality.
More information at HorizonsNYC.org