Shaman as Saviour? The Trope of the Amazonian Shaman in Recent Latin American Literature and Film

This dissertation analyzes the trope of the Amazonian shaman in recent Latin American literature and film. References to shamanism have become increasingly popular in recent years. Shamans have gained importance in environmentalism and struggles for Indigenous rights, as well as academic writing interested in radical social change. Meanwhile, shamanic tourism attracts thousands to the Amazon region each year. The books and films of this dissertation participate in this trend by mobilizing the shaman as a figure that holds privileged solutions to contemporary problems like ecological decline, climate change, and persistent coloniality. I argue that these shamanic solutions are often superficial and aimed at satisfying Western desires for progress and limitless growth. Furthermore, they reproduce problematic colonialist tropes, including Western fascination with the ‘wild man.’ Nevertheless, my readings also show how these works may suggest possibilities for change. I draw on critical environmental scholarship, including the work of Elizabeth Povinelli, Stacy Alaimo, Déborah Danowski and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro to show how the shaman characters’ risk-laden and grounded negotiations with materiality may sometimes challenge anthropocentrism and narratives of progress. Moreover, through their frequent references to the Amazonian archive of colonial texts, anthropology, literature and film, the works themselves model a similar process of negotiation that transforms the notion of shamanism. My own contribution via this dissertation is also an inevitable part of this ongoing engagement. Chapter 1 analyzes the influence of shamanic ayahuasca tourism and desires for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples over the abuses of colonialism in the film El abrazo de la serpiente (2015). Chapter 2 addresses how the film Ícaros: A Vision (2016) undermines the drama of shamanic miracle healing and tourism through a focus on the characters’ imbrication with materiality. Chapter 3 compares the ambivalence of shamanic pharmakon remedies in the novels Todas as coisas são pequenas (2008) and El último guerrero de’Aruwa (2006), and the film Chamán: El último guerrero (2016). Chapter 4 analyzes shaman Davi Kopenawa’s techniques for maneuvering restrictions on Indigenous discourse in The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman (2010).

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