The Shaman's Needle: Development, Shamanic Agency, and Intermedicality in Aguaruna Lands, Peru

In this article I juxtapose and integrate three distinct but interrelated lines of analysis: (1) a critique of “development” with respect to its (misconceptions of ethnomedicines as epistemologically and practically (that is, culturally) static; (2) an explication of how shamanic curing epitomizes such perceived stasis; and (3) an ethnographic analysis of a specific shamanic session (originally presented by Brown [1988]) conducted by an Aguaruna shaman whose discourse and practice, when contextual ized and fully explored, undermine (misconceptions of stasis. The article employs a notion of intermedicality to examine medical development, demonstrating the important social agency executed on the part of native practitioners. I discuss implications for theorizing indigenous culture and the importance of an ethnographic approach , [development, shamanism, ethnomedicine, culture change, medical anthropology, Amazonia]