A viagem de volta: cogumelos e cogumelosidades no processo da vida

Abstract

This research aims at an approach to the life of a species of magic mushrooms (Psilocybe cubensis) spread in Minas Gerais and other regions in Brazil and the world, and to a set of relations between them and humans. Based on Bruno Latour's network-actor theory and inspired by Tim Ingold's "back to life" anthropology, the aim of this work is to draw this social field from an ethnographic course that considers several dimensions found when pursuing human practices with these mushrooms: use regulations; cyberspace and mycological techniques; modalities of trade and non-trade there; experiments-events shared between people-organisms and the reporting of their "trips" with mushrooms. The work considers humans and mushrooms as protagonists, and the practice of mushroom ingestion as relations between people and materials; thus chasing mushrooms and the conceptions of them in different contexts and between different research participants.