# ‘Indigenous Reciprocity’ Amid Contemporary International Shamanic Networks
## Indigenous Reciprocity Amid Contemporary International Shamanic Networks
2025 Conference Anthology
Lígia Platero, *Chacruna Institute*
## Indigenous Reciprocity Amid Contemporary International Shamanic Networks
**Abstract:** Many non-Indigenous people from the USA, Canada, and European countries are heading to Latin American countries to take part in shamanic tourism retreats, seeking authentic experiences with ayahuasca and so-called forest medicines. In the case of Brazil, the focus of this shamanic tourism has been among the Pano-speaking peoples of the State of Acre. Many of these non-Indigenous people seek out shamanic experiences to enhance their spiritual and therapeutic practices. Many of them also wish to become partners and participate in activities of “Indigenous reciprocity,” aiming to highlight and promote Indigenous cultures rather than appropriating these cultures as their own. In light of this, this essay seeks to understand what can be considered practices of Indigenous reciprocity in the context of contemporary international shamanic networks, focusing on the relations between non-Indigenous foreigners, non-Indigenous Brazilians, and Indigenous peoples from Acre. What is considered by each as “partnership” or “exchange”? Are they philanthropic initiatives resulting from a dialogue between Indigenous cosmologies and native theories of reciprocity with Western theories of human rights, historical reparation, and decoloniality? Are these economic partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people concerned with Indigenous autonomy and social justice? Based on research conducted via the anthropological method of participant observation, I argue that these relationships typically involve ritual, shamanic, political, kinship, and economic exchanges; they also include relations between humans and non-humans. This essay also incorporates concepts that emerged in the declaration from the Ayahuasca Indigenous Conferences, held in Indigenous territories in Acre since 2017.
### Introduction
In this essay, I pursue three objectives. The first is to examine how the notion of Indigenous reciprocity has been articulated by authors in the psychedelic field in the Global North in the last few years. The second is to understand how processes of reciprocity unfold in interethnic alliances among Indigenous and non-indigenous people in contemporary international shamanic networks, specifically among the Yawanawá Indigenous people of Acre, Brazil, and the production of alliances through ayahuasca shamanism. The third is to discuss some limits and ethical concerns about what has been called “Indigenous reciprocity.”
I address these objectives using research from my doctoral fieldwork in 2015 and 2016, in which I conducted participant observation at an urban Santo Daime church in Rio de Janeiro and at a shamanic tourist festival in the Rio Gregório Indigenous Land, home to the Yawanawá people in Acre. To complement this research, I incorporated new data from two recent interviews with urban allies from Brazil, along with new information gathered from Instagram, particularly from pages of Yawanawá Indigenous leaders and non-Indigenous allies, about Indigenous rituals in urban settings and shamanic retreats.
### What is Indigenous Reciprocity?
In recent years, several authors in the psychedelic field in the Global North have begun to develop and debate the concept of “Indigenous reciprocity.” This concept emerges as a critique of the expropriation of Indigenous knowledges related to sacred plants and fungi by Western actors in the Global North—including healthcare companies, researchers, therapists, and shamanic tourism seekers.[1](#references) In that sense, Indigenous reciprocity is a call for intercultural dialogue that honors Indigenous people, rather than the expropriation of their knowledge. As Labate states, it is important to recognize that Indigenous knowledge has historically informed psychedelic research. Rather than imitating or appropriating a set of techniques from Indigenous people, Indigenous reciprocity calls for collaboration between scientists and Indigenous people. Indigenous reciprocity is a constructive response to the critique of the commercialization and medicalization of psychedelics without prior and informed consultation with Indigenous peoples and without sharing benefits. Indigenous reciprocity involves taking Indigenous knowledge, epistemologies, and ontologies seriously.[2](#references) Beyond collaboration between science and Indigenous knowledge, or the revaluation of Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous reciprocity also entails taking international Indigenous rights seriously. Such rights are found in international treaties related to Indigenous intellectual property and genetic knowledge (Bashir, 2024), like the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992), the Nagoya Protocol (2010), and the WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge (2024).[3](#references)
Indigenous reciprocity can be seen as a dialogue between Western and Indigenous knowledge, and as the sharing of economic benefits because of these exchanges. Based on the Quechua concept of “ayni”, reciprocity reveals a world in a perpetual state of dynamic imbalance that requires constant vigilance and continual reordering.[4](#references) This process of reordering involves giving and receiving in relations between humans and plants, humans and non-humans, humans and spirits, the forest, mountains, and other beings with agency.
Celidwen et al., using a method rooted in Indigenous reciprocity (a collaborative and consensus-based approach led by Indigenous stakeholders), highlight the need for Indigenous leadership, Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), and material benefit-sharing in a relational context.[5](#references) Spriggs et al. identify reciprocity as a “core pillar” for an ethical psychedelic therapy infrastructure, and the need for clear guidelines on “how to give back.”[6](#references) The Chacruna Institute’s Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative (IRI) provides a tangible example of Indigenous reciprocity in action. The IRI is a program created in 2021 to foster and facilitate benefit-sharing between commerce related to psychedelics and Indigenous-led organizations across the Americas. Along with benefit-sharing, the program co-produces educational material on issues related to Indigenous reciprocity for both academic and general audiences. IRI recognizes that the psychedelic industry profits from Indigenous knowledge, and “a commitment to reciprocity is an ongoing and consistent commitment to righting that imbalance; it must be striven for day after day, and can only take place within a system of relationships”.[7](#references)
Indigenous reciprocity is an important topic that has been discussed by different groups of authors in the psychedelic field, and its importance has grown among practitioners, therapists, religious people, psychonauts, scientists, and Indigenous people. As we can see in this discussion, economic benefit-sharing is a foundational aspect of this debate.
### International Shamanic Networks and Shamanic Tourism in Acre, Brazil
The Yawanawá are Indigenous people from the Pano linguistic family that live in the state of Acre in the Brazilian Amazon. Since the 1990s, they have experienced an extensive process of cultural revitalization. In the 2000s, Indigenous people from Acre began to visit ayahuasca centers in the cities and initiated a process of forming kinship and intercultural alliances with people interested in their rituals. The Huni Kuin, Yawanawá, and Ashaninka Indigenous people were pioneers in the cities in these ayahuasca circuits and networks. Since 2010, they have been receiving non-Indigenous tourists in their lands to participate in ayahuasca rituals. These constructions of intercultural relations and dialogues with people from cities, such as those from Santo Daime churches, were important to the process of revitalizing their traditions and cultures, rescuing the uses of ayahuasca and other forest medicines.
Since 2010, shamanic tourism has become one of the most important economic activities for the Yawanawá people. The number of festivals for shamanic tourism in Acre increased significantly. These festivals are encounters that were traditionally held by Pano Indigenous groups to receive their kin from other villages. But since the 2000s, the Yawanawá began to receive non-Indigenous people as tourists in these celebrations. In these festivals, they consume the *uni* (ayahuasca) and other forest medicines (such as rapeh, sananga, and kambo), and engage in singing, dancing, and traditional games. People from the Global North travel to these festivals seeking healing through Indigenous knowledge with the intent to transform their lives, connect with nature, protect the forest, and obtain knowledge for their work in psychedelic-assisted therapy. Indigenous people from Acre also began traveling to countries in the Global North to perform rituals and find economic allies.
In the context of international ayahuasca shamanic networks, an important aspect of reciprocity is the production of alliances. These intercultural alliances are constructed in interethnic rituals with the collective consumption of ayahuasca and other forest medicines noted above. The construction of these alliances is also related to the production of partnerships and kinship, such as godparenthood and intermarriage.[8](#references) From the Yawanawá perspective, these alliances are understood as a process of “domestication” or “familiarization” of non-Indigenous actors, which are seduced and habituated to the Yawanawá ritual practices, substances, and knowledge. These strangers are habituated and have their bodies transformed by the production of consubstantiality and “spiritual kinship” (spiritual alliances), and by marriages with non-Indigenous “strangers”.[9](#references)
From the Yawanawá point of view, through the collective consumption of forest medicines, non-Indigenous bodies are transformed and become partially Yawanawá. They are also inserted into circuits that involve gift exchange across multiple regimes of value, including kinship, ritual, political, and economic.[10](#references) In these international shamanic networks, reciprocity can be seen as a system of gift exchange. These systems of exchange can occur between Yawanawá people and actors from the Global North, as well as between Yawanawá and Brazilian and other non-Indigenous Latin Americans. In this context, non-Indigenous allies can consider these exchanges as a way of producing reciprocity, fighting for Indigenous rights, and the sustained existence of their people by creating NGOs, shamanic retreats, and selling Indigenous art, for example.
### Dimensions of Indigenous Reciprocity
Amid the international landscape of contemporary shamanic networks, reciprocity has emerged through the construction of intercultural global alliances. In these dialogues and exchanges of knowledge, communication generally has its misunderstandings, including what is considered Indigenous reciprocity. When the allies are foreigners, these relations of exchange generally involve monetary philanthropy from the Global North to Indigenous people in the Global South. People from the Global North are impacted by these ceremonial experiences with ayahuasca and forest medicines, and when they have the opportunity, some of them make monetary donations to Indigenous people. Foreigners also create NGOs in the Global North and advocate for Indigenous rights and for the sharing of benefits from the commercial psychedelic space (comprised of multiple stakeholders—seekers, practitioners, business leaders, and investors) with Indigenous groups.
However, for now, Brazilian allies generally do not donate money to Indigenous people in these alliances. Brazilian allies try to contribute and reciprocate with Indigenous people by working with them on specific projects. Most of the allies in Brazil don’t see themselves as philanthropists, but as people who work for a cause, like preserving Indigenous culture and the forest. Many of them professionalize in this field, working with NGOs or creating economic projects that seek to collaborate with and contribute to Indigenous communities. Some of these allies create stores to sell Indigenous crafts and share the profits, or they help Indigenous people to travel to the Global North to perform rituals in order to make allies, or they help Indigenous women in the production and sale of their art to become financially autonomous, or they create water wells in Indigenous villages. Many of them also work for Indigenous causes through shamanic tourism and ayahuasca centers in the cities. In this sense, Indigenous reciprocity is understood by these non-Indigenous Brazilian allies as a way of life, a professionalization. At present, allyship in Brazil between Indigenous groups and non-Indigenous Brazilians entails giving back the knowledge they received in ceremonial contexts through professional work and engagement, rather than through direct financial donations. They act reciprocally because they are inserted into Indigenous networks of exchanges by participating in ayahuasca ceremonies in cities and in Indigenous villages. Very few wealthy people in Brazil interested in psychedelics donate money to Indigenous groups, with the notable exception of DJ Alok, a philanthropist for the Yawanawá people who donates money for their causes. But even in this case, he created the Instituto Alok, which partners with Indigenous peoples in Brazil on cultural projects, such as the Som Nativo campaign, promoting Indigenous music in Brazil and abroad.
### Ethical Limits and Concerns
In these intercultural alliances, allies can be accused of using the image of Indigenous people and appropriating Indigenous knowledge and cultures for their own benefit, especially when they aim to become leaders of ceremonies using ayahuasca and other forest medicines, in Brazil or in foreign countries. There are many urban (and non-urban) neo-shamanic groups led by Brazilian non-Indigenous people who mimic Indigenous rituals. At the last Ayahuasca Indigenous Conference on Yawanawá Indigenous land in January 2025, Indigenous leaders mentioned concerns about non-Indigenous people using and making profits with names, clothes, objects, and rituals from Indigenous people in Brazil. These Indigenous leaders also expressed frustration that purported allies from both the Global North and Brazil would come to learn from them, then sell rituals and art abroad as if they were Indigenous themselves, with no concern for prior consent or proper benefit-sharing.
These ethical concerns are related to Indigenous rights, intellectual property, and genetic resources. These observations from the Ayahuasca Indigenous Conference highlight that there is often a thin line between alliance and predatory practices.
### Conclusion
As the coordinator for the Chacruna Institute’s Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative, Osiris Cerqueda stated in his lecture at the Psychedelic Culture conference in 2024 that Indigenous reciprocity is a historical process already under construction.[11](#references) Building on Cerqueda, Indigenous reciprocity is experienced differently depending on cultural and historical processes in each country. Further, Indigenous reciprocity functions both across the divide between Global North and South and within the Global South between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups. Indigenous reciprocity is a way to rebalance unequal, hierarchical relations between the Global North and the Global South. Indigenous reciprocity is also related to allyship between Indigenous groups and actors inside their countries. When non-Indigenous allies practice Indigenous reciprocity as a profession and a way of life, benefits may be shared improperly or inequitably. There are ethical concerns in all these relations.
For allies in the Global North, it is important that financial support to Indigenous peoples not be framed through a Christian notion of charity, but rather through principles of benefit-sharing and historical reparation. It is also important that such support not be leveraged as a means of gaining access to Indigenous individuals, communities, or territories in the Global South.
For allies in the Global South, it is important not to instrumentalize relationships with Indigenous peoples in Latin America as a form of currency in exchanges with actors from the Global North, using these connections to secure professional or personal advantages. It is equally important that Global South allies refrain from acting as though they represent Indigenous peoples or speak on behalf of Indigenous knowledge.
A retreat or workshop should not be assumed to be “reciprocal” simply because it claims to act in the name of Indigenous reciprocity. Unfortunately, the language of reciprocity is often used to legitimize the commodification of sacred plants and extractive practices, without appropriate consent, accountability, or equitable benefit-sharing.
Author Biography
### Lígia Duque Platero
Lígia Duque Platero is Chacruna’s Education Program Associate. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history (2005) from the University of São Paulo (USP). She has a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM, 2012). She has a doctorate in cultural anthropology (2018) from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Her PhD examined the cultural reinventions, transformations, and exchanges within the alliance between the Yawanawá Indigenous people and an urban Santo Daime church. Her main research interests are: ayahuasca, sacred plants, interethnic relations, shamanic tourism, and Indigenous rights.
#### Footnotes
1 De Leon, “Sacred Reciprocity: Supporting the Roots of the Psychedelic Movement,” Inclusion & Diversity, *Chacruna*, May 29, 2020, [https://chacruna.net/sacred-reciprocity-supporting-the-roots-of-the-psy…](https://chacruna.net/sacred-reciprocity-supporting-the-roots-of-the-psychedelic-movement/); Bia Labate, “Psychedelic Scientists Should Honor Indigenous Plants and Traditions,” Inclusion & Diversity, *Chacruna*, November 10, 2020, . [\[Return to Section\]](#section1)
2 Keith Williams et al., “Indigenous Philosophies and the ‘Psychedelic Renaissance,’” *Anthropology of Consciousness* 33, no. 2 (2022): 506–27, [https://doi.org/10.1111/anoc.12161](https://doi.org/10.1111/anoc.12161.). [\[Return to Section\]](#section1)
3 Karina Bashir, “The Promise of Nagoya: Indigenous Reciprocity in the Psychedelic Renaissance,” *Georgetown Journal of International Law Blog*, December 31, 2024, [https://www.law.georgetown.edu/international-law-journal/blog/the-promi…](https://www.law.georgetown.edu/international-law-journal/blog/the-promise-of-nagoya-indigenous-reciprocity-in-the-psychedelic-renaissance/); *Convention on Biological Diversity*, with Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Nijar, Gurdial Singh (United Nations Environmental Programme, 1992); *Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilization to the convention on biological diversity: text and annex*, with Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Nijar, Gurdial Singh (United Nations Environmental Programme, 2011); World International Property Organization, *WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge* (2024). [\[Return to Section\]](#section1)
4 Joseph Mays et al., “Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative of the Americas: A Respectful Path Forward for the Psychedelic Movement,” *MAPS Bulletin*, 2021, 24. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1)
5 Yuria Celidwen et al., “Ethical Principles of Traditional Indigenous Medicine to Guide Western Psychedelic Research and Practice,” *The Lancet Regional Health – Americas* 18 (February 2023), [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2022.100410](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2022.100410.). [\[Return to Section\]](#section1)
6 Meg J. Spriggs et al., “ARC: A Framework for Access, Reciprocity and Conduct in Psychedelic Therapies,” *Frontiers in Psychology* 14 (May 2023), [https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1119115](https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1119115.). [\[Return to Section\]](#section1)
7 Mays et al., “Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative of the Americas: A Respectful Path Forward for the Psychedelic Movement,” 25. [\[Return to Section\]](#section1)
8 Lígia Duque Platero and Isabel Santana de Rose, “‘Forest Medicines,’ Kinship Alliances, and Equivocations in the Contemporary Dialogues between Santo Daime and the Yawanawá,” *Anthropology of Consciousness* 33, no. 2 (2022): 279–306, [\[Return to Section\]](#section2)
9 Platero and de Rose, “‘Forest Medicines,’ Kinship Alliances, and Equivocations in the Contemporary Dialogues between Santo Daime and the Yawanawá,” 287. [\[Return to Section\]](#section2)
10 Platero and de Rose, “‘Forest Medicines,’ Kinship Alliances, and Equivocations in the Contemporary Dialogues between Santo Daime and the Yawanawá,” 286. [\[Return to Section\]](#section2)
11 Osiris Cerqueda, Conference talk, “Who benefits from the Psychedelic ‘Renaissance’? Indigenous Reciprocity, Decolonisation, and Plant Medicine Conservation,” Psychedelic Culture April 27, 2024, San Francisco, CA. [\[Return to Section\]](#section3)
#### Bibliography
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Celidwen, Yuria, Nicole Redvers, Cicilia Githaiga, et al. “Ethical Principles of Traditional Indigenous Medicine to Guide Western Psychedelic Research and Practice.” *The Lancet Regional Health – Americas* 18 (February 2023). .
*Convention on Biological Diversity*. With Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Nijar, Gurdial Singh. United Nations Environmental Programme, 1992.
De Leon. “Sacred Reciprocity: Supporting the Roots of the Psychedelic Movement.” Inclusion & Diversity. *Chacruna*, May 29, 2020. [https://chacruna.net/sacred-reciprocity-supporting-the-roots-of-the-psy…](https://chacruna.net/sacred-reciprocity-supporting-the-roots-of-the-psychedelic-movement/).
Labate, Bia. “Psychedelic Scientists Should Honor Indigenous Plants and Traditions.” Inclusion & Diversity. *Chacruna*, November 10, 2020. .
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*Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilization to the convention on biological diversity: text and annex*. With Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Nijar, Gurdial Singh. United Nations Environmental Programme, 2011.
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Spriggs, Meg J., Ashleigh Murphy-Beiner, Roberta Murphy, Julia Bornemann, Hannah Thurgur, and Anne K. Schlag. “ARC: A Framework for Access, Reciprocity and Conduct in Psychedelic Therapies.” *Frontiers in Psychology* 14 (May 2023). .
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World International Property Organization. *WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge*. 2024.
#### Suggested Citation
Platero, Lígia. “Indigenous Reciprocity Amid Contemporary International Shamanic Networks .” In Psychedelic Intersections: 2025 Conference Anthology, edited by Jeffrey Breau and Paul Gillis-Smith. Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School, 2026. © License: CC BY-NC.