This research thesis explores how healers in the Peruvian Upper Amazon experience and negotiate their roles and knowledge systems at the interface of Amazonian, Western scientific and other medical knowledge systems at the confluence of community and environmental health. Experiences of identity, practice and place feature in this research among selected healers in the region of San Martín, Peru. Relationships with nature have sustained Indigenous populations in this region, and economic pursuits of natural resources have attracted many populations to the Upper Peruvian Amazon, making it an interesting site for the analysis of healers’ experiences at the interface of different knowledge systems. An emergent objective of this thesis has been to provide what healers in the region expressed to me as a need for an experiential approach to research on local medical knowledge systems. The resulting thesis is an ethnography of my experiences learning from healers and plant teachers about intercultural health initiatives on a regional level in Peru.

Fostering collaboration among people of diverse ethnicities is vital to improving our relationships with Nature and with each other. All knowledges known to humans have their limits, including Western scientific knowledge. This study argues that Indigenous elders have a wealth of nature-based wisdom which is urgently needed. The Thirteen International Indigenous Grandmothers have been sharing their wisdom with the world and meeting them inspired this work. Two Grandmothers, one Mazatec and member of the Thirteen Grandmothers who follows in the healing tradition of curandera María Sabina, the other Taíno (Caribbean Arawak), and several members of their families in Mexico and in Cuba kindly agreed to be research participants so that I could bring attention to their gifts and share with the world. Embodying their ancient wisdom they do not see themselves as separate from Nature but as integral part of her. Their relationships to all beings, humans, animals, plants, minerals, and spiritual entities, are imbued with love and care. They can be role models for people who have forgotten the most basic premise of respect, reciprocity, responsibility, and empathy for all our relations. The methodologies underlying this investigation are Indigenous. I used strategies of inquiry such as storytelling, participant observation, and reflexive self study. Relationality and accountability are its pillars. Being of European descent, doing research with Indigenous elders required great vigilance on my part. I had to challenge my own conventional Western views and question the truths I am surrounded with to gain an understanding of my research participants’ worldview. Even with the best of intentions all I could hope for was an approximation. As I immersed myself into the worlds of my participants the great significance of plants as part of their physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing became evident. Maize, tobacco, and the plant teachers cohoba and psilocybe mushrooms were, and for the most part still are, essential and closely knit into their cultural fabric. Coming from a background where the written word is placed high above the spoken one, and Nature is seen as separate to us, it is important to acknowledge that much rich understanding of the world is beyond pen and paper, even beyond words. / Graduate / 0727 / gabriela@uvic.ca

This research thesis explores how healers in the Peruvian Upper Amazon experience and negotiate their roles and knowledge systems at the interface of Amazonian, Western scientific and other medical knowledge systems at the confluence of community and environmental health. Experiences of identity, practice and place feature in this research among selected healers in the region of San Martín, Peru. Relationships with nature have sustained Indigenous populations in this region, and economic pursuits of natural resources have attracted many populations to the Upper Peruvian Amazon, making it an interesting site for the analysis of healers’ experiences at the interface of different knowledge systems. An emergent objective of this thesis has been to provide what healers in the region expressed to me as a need for an experiential approach to research on local medical knowledge systems. The resulting thesis is an ethnography of my experiences learning from healers and plant teachers about intercultural health initiatives on a regional level in Peru.