Paper Short Abstract:

This paper will explore how women in contemporary paganism in Portugal utilize both vernacular and scientific knowledge about the therapeutic use of plants, alongside their lived spirituality, to contest, re-signify, and resist biomedical and patriarchal approaches to health, well-being, the body, and power.

Paper Abstract:

"Plants are not alternative medicine, they are the original medicine" has become a popular phrase on social media. Interest in the therapeutic properties of plants has been growing in Portugal in recent years, as evidenced by the number of courses on phytotherapy, natural cosmetics and herbalism that have arisen in various circles. This type of knowledge is not new. Plants have served as a therapeutic resource in different socio-cultural contexts worldwide and have been the basis of Western pharmacology. However, local knowledge about its uses has been stripped of its authority by the rise of biomedicine as an institutional and hegemonic expertise.

Practitioners of contemporary spiritualities are among those more active in utilizing this form of healing. Particularly within the context of contemporary paganism, it has grown among women of diverse generations and socio-economic backgrounds as a response to dominant medical discourses, perceived as patriarchal. This practice is seen as a means of fostering their connection with nature, reclaiming power over their bodies and health, and emphasising the importance and legitimacy of local knowledge regarding the benefits of plant use.

Drawing on research conducted within the ReSpell project - Religion, Spirituality and Wellbeing: a Comparative Approach of Transreligiosity and Crisis in Southern Europe, ref. 2022.01229.PTDC - this paper discusses how pagan women utilize plants to promote their healing and well-being, while at the same time resisting, contesting, constructing and reconfiguring biomedical, religious and heteronormative practices that highlight power relations and embodied individual and collective understandings of health, illness and well-being.