MA Agnes Dudek

I hold a BA in American Studies, with a focus on American short story literature, and an MA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Warsaw. My MA thesis, “A Sacred Exchange? An Ethnographic Study on How Shipibo Ayahuasca Culture is Experienced and Interpreted by the Westerner”, was based on fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon and coastal Ecuador, where I examined the dynamics between Shipibo ritual specialists and Western participants seeking healing and spiritual experiences.

Currently, I am pursuing a PhD at the Doctoral School of Humanities at the University of Warsaw. My doctoral project, “Western Users of Iboga in Gabon: A Decolonizing Ethnography of Plant–Human Relations”, explores how iboga ceremonies in Gabonese centers for Western participants become sites of epistemological and ontological negotiation, where local Bwiti practices intersect with Western imaginaries and therapeutic expectations.

My research interests include ethnography, decolonization, the ontological turn, religious studies, shamanism, altered states of consciousness, spiritual tourism, and the globalization of ritual practices. In Gabon, I plan to conduct multi-sited ethnographic research at iboga centers to analyze how concepts of healing, agency, and transcendence are produced, negotiated, and transformed in these transnational spaces.