Shepard, Glenn Harvey

DR. GLENN H. SHEPARD, JR., Goeldi Museum, Belem, Brazil, was awarded a Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship in April 2009, to aid research and writing on 'The Forest of Senses: Explorations of Nature, Culture, and Sensation in the Peruvian Amazon.' Sorcery of the Senses examines the role of sensory perception in shamanism, traditional medicine and world view among two indigenous groups of the Peruvian Amazon: the Matsigenka and Nahua (Yora). Initial field research focused on the sensory properties of medicinal plants used by these two neighboring but distinctive peoples, mortal enemies until 1985. Explorations of sensory perception in botany, medicine, and shamanism opened doorways of understanding into the two groups' richly patterned and sensuous engagement with the environment and the cosmos, while highlighting differences in culture and ethos. This research distinguishes itself from most work in sensory anthropology by engaging productively with the field of psychophysics (sensory science), approaching sensation as rooted in physiology and environmental experience and yet also constructed through culture and personal history. By comparing sensory vocabulary, traditional medicine, and appropriations of Western medicines by the two groups, the book shows how environment, physiology and culture interact in constructing complex notions about agency. Drawing on the work of sensory and environmental anthropologists as well as on the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the writings of environmentalist David Abram, the book reflects on how sensory perception mediates people's relationships with the social, natural, and supernatural worlds.