Reinventions and controversies: the necessity of tradition and the vicissitudes of regulation Henrique Fernandes Antunes PhD Candidate - University of São Paulo Visiting Scholar - UC Berkeley Ayahuasca, a divine being, a plant teacher, an entheogen, a hallucinogen, a medicine, a drug, a “juice cleanse”, cognitive tool, a commodity, a preparation, a tea. The definitions associated with ayahuasca are almost as diverse as its uses. As the authors highlight, the use of ayahuasca throughout the world is composed of many different practices - indigenous shamanism, religious groups, therapeutic use, neoshamanic groups associated with the new age movement, a particular form of tourism, and entrepreneurship, etc. Despite the variety of practices, uses and groups, they are all part of what the authors chose to call the “world ayahuasca diaspora”, or the ayahuasca boom. Thus, this volume presents has an important task: trying to understand the complexities regarding ayahuasca, as its use expands worldwide, and leads to reinventions and controversies. Issues such as tradition, identity, legitimacy, stigmatization, disputes between groups, legal prosecutions, drug policies, gain a new perspective through the ayahuasca diaspora lens. In light of the complexity of these issues, my presentation today will focus on one the aspects of the book that is dearest to me, and relates directly to my work: the controversies. I’ll divide my presentation in two parts. First, all talk about the internal controversies of the ayahuasca milieu. On the second part, I will discuss the legal controversies that some ayahuasca groups and practitioners face when their practices become the focus of governmental restraint or regulation. In this volume, Dawson (2016) provides an important analysis to address the first problem by investigating what he calls, the retraditionalization process associated with the world ayahuasca diaspora. The author talks about a reconfiguration involving the recapitulation of traditional beliefs and practices in a way that not only lead to reinventions through a hybridization process, but can also create new traditions with the introduction of new rituals, beliefs and values formerly absent from the Amazonian imaginary. Sometimes those processes 1 ________________________________________________________________________________________________www.neip.info