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Title of Dissertation : Ayahuasca and Politics in the Brazilian Amazon

Grant Florian’s research focuses on Brazil’s Santo Daime religion, which was founded in 1930 by Raimundo Irineu Serra, a rubber tapper of Afro-Brazilian descent. Irineu Serra was a labor migrant from Northeast Brazil who moved to the country’s recently annexed Acre Territory, in the Amazon, seeking opportunities in the rubber trade. The religion combines Catholic, indigenous, and Afro-Brazilian influences. It is best known among non-members due to Daimistas’ sacramental use of ayahuasca, a psychoactive tea. Grant Florian’s research studies how this once stigmatized religion has since the 1980s gained mainstream acceptability in Brazil, and garnered support from environmentalists and progressive social movements thanks to Daimistas’ rainforest conservation efforts. It also examines ways in which some on the right within Brazil attempt to court Daimista voters, who have historically tended to lean left politically.