LKS Medical Faculty MEHU
HKU MEHU
Prof Alex K. Gearin

Prof Alex K. Gearin

Prof Alex K. Gearin

Prof Alex K. Gearin

Ph.D, B.A  (Anthropology (Honours))

Deputy Director, Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, School of Clinical Medicine
Assistant Professor

Email: akgearin@hku.hk

Background

Prof Alex K. Gearin (PhD) is a medical anthropologist specializing in the intersections of mental health, social context, and cultural beliefs. His research focuses on the bodily, narrative, and emotional dimensions of psychedelic medicine usage and meditation practices, exploring how these elements shape human experience. He is particularly interested in how practitioners construct themselves ethically while they navigate illness, disease, and healing, altered states of consciousness, and different social and environmental settings.

His monograph, Global Ayahuasca: Wondrous Visions and Modern Worlds (Stanford University Press, 2024), examines the psychoactive plant brew ayahuasca among networks in Peru, Australia, and China. The book explores how the emotional and sensory dimensions of ayahuasca practices intersect with modernity and globalization, providing insights into its cultural significance, therapeutic potential, and risks or challenges.

Since earning his doctorate from the University of Queensland in 2015, Alex has conducted ethnographic research on the intercultural ethics of wellness tourism among Shipibo healers in Peru, the interplay of spirituality and individualism in psychedelic healing groups in Australia, nominally secular ayahuasca therapies in mainland China, and, more recently, emotional labour and affective atmospheres among clinical psychedelic settings in the United States.

Alex has been awarded over 1 million HKD in funding from the Hong Kong University Grants Council for two significant GRF projects. The first investigates the contexts, risks, and challenges associated with meditation practices in Hong Kong (2022-2024). The second examines the spatial and environmental dimensions of clinical psychedelic usage in Australia (2024-2027).

He serves as Assistant Professor and Deputy Director of the Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, where he is dedicated to educating medical students on narrative medicine, the cultural aspects of psychopharmacology, and social justice in medicine. As a member of the Extended Humanities Lab (HKU), Alex is developing virtual reality films that immerse users in various medical and health-related spaces across Hong Kong. This innovative project aims to enhance affective and atmospheric literacies among medical students and others, cultivating a deeper appreciation of healing spaces.

Key Research Areas

  • Psychedelic Medicine
  • Cultural Psychiatry
  • Meditation and Mindfulness
  • Anthropology of Morality and Ethics
  • Health Tourism

Selected Publications

Chen, J., Wu, H., & Gearin, A. K. 2025. “Health Humanities.” In A Practical Guide for Medical Teachers, 7th Edition. (eds.) John Dent et al. London: Elsevier Health Sciences (forthcoming)

Gearin, A. K. 2024 Psychedelic Atmospherics. In Entheogen Review (forthcoming, Dec)

Gearin, A. K. 2024. Healing with ayahuasca the plant teacher: psychedelic metaphoricity and polyontologies. Medical Anthropology. 43(7), 583–597

Langlitz, N. & Gearin, A. K. 2024. “Psychedelic Therapy as Form of Life” Neuroethics. 17,14: 1-19

Gearin, A. K. 2023. “Moving beyond a figurative psychedelic literacy: Metaphors of psychiatric symptoms in ayahuasca narratives”. Social Science & Medicine. 334:1-9

Gearin, A. K. 2023. “Becoming modern in China with an indigenous Amazonian healing brew”. In Erika Dyck and Chris Elcock (Eds.) Expanded Mindscapes: A Global History of Psychedelics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Gearin, A. K. 2023. “On the Ambiguity of Psychedelic Awe in China”. Anthropology Today. 39(6):18-20

Gearin, A. K. 2022. “Primitivist medicine and capitalist anxieties in ayahuasca tourism Peru”. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 28(2):496-515

Gearin, A. K. & Calavia Saez, O. 2021. “Altered vision: sensory individualism and ayahuasca shamanism”. Current Anthropology. 62(2):138-163

Gearin, A. K. and Devenot, N. 2021. “Psychedelic medicalization, public discourse, and the morality of ego dissolution”. International Journal of Cultural Studies. 24(6): 917-935

Gearin, A. K. 2021. “Xiangsi: Acacia confusa”. In The Mind of Plants (eds.) John Ryan, Monica Gagliano, and Patricia Vieira. Santa Fe: Synergetic Press

Books

Gearin, A. K. 2024. Global Ayahuasca: Wondrous Visions and Modern Worlds. Stanford University Press

Labate, B., Cavnar C, Gearin, A. K. 2017. (Eds) The world ayahuasca diaspora: Controversies and reinventions. New York: Routledge.

Key Teaching Areas

  • Medical Anthropology
  • Cultural Psychiatry and Psychopharmacology
  • Film and Narrative Medicine
  • Social Justice in Medicine

Research Grants and Awards

2024-2027 Principal Investigator. General Research Fund (UGC) ($694,140 HKD) Project title: “Altered spaces: investigating materialities and epistemic concerns of psychedelic healing settings in Australia”. Hong Kong University Grants Council.
2024 Principal Investigator. HKU Overseas Fellowship. ($50,000 HKD) to visit Johns Hopkins University, Department of Psychiatry, Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, July-August, 2024. Project Title: “Clinician Perspectives of Mood and Social Atmosphere in Psychedelic Treatments”.
2022-2024 Principal Investigator. General Research Fund (UGC) ($377,756 HKD) Project title: “Healing in the Forest: A Sensory Ethnography of Nature Therapy in Hong Kong”. Hong Kong University Grants Council.
2023 Principal Investigator. Research Scheme Award, Center for Medical Ethics and Law (HKU) ($20,000 HKD). Project Title: “Psychedelics and moral psychopharmacology: Psychedelic psychotherapies as practical implementations of moral philosophies”.
2021-2024 Principal Investigator. Enhanced New Staff Start-Up Research Package. LKS Faculty of Medicine. The University of Hong Kong. ($380,000 HKD). Project title: “Ecosystems of Wellness: A VR Study of Hong Kong’s Nature-related Therapies”.
2018-2020 Xiamen University Faculty of Social Sciences Research Grant (100,000 RMB). Project titled: “The Globalization of an Amazonian shamanic medicine”.
2017-2021 Fujian Attracting Foreign Talent Grant (1,000,000 RMB)
2011-2015 APA (Australian Postgraduate Award, 75,000 AUD). The University of Queensland, School of Social Science, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
2009 Dean’s Honours Selection, Anthropology. La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.

Conference Papers and Talks

2024 “The ethics of incommensurable ontologies in psychedelic medicine”, invited guest speaker for “Psychedethical: The future of psychedelic and psychoative substances” conference at Shanghai University. Wellcome-funded humanities event with historians, anthropologists, and bioethicists, co-organized by University of Strathclyde, UK (December)
2024 “Bodily Vibrations: Ayahuasca’s Kinetic Agency in Cross-Cultural Health. Conference paper for “International Symposium on Eco-Mobilities: Kinopolitics and Kinopoetics in the Anthropocene”, Department of Humanities and Creative Writing, Hong Kong Baptist University (November)
2024 “Facilitating Affect: Psychiatric Science and Experimental Atmospheres at Johns Hopkins University,” invited guest speaker at the conference “Medical Humanities in East Asia and Beyond”, Fudan University, Shanghai. (November)
2024 “Affective Atmospheres in Psychedelic Science” invited speaker at “The Third Peking University International Conference on Medical Humanities: Humanities in Promoting Health for All”, School of Health Humanities, Peking University, Beijing (November)
2024 “Ayahuasca as Medicine or Muse?” public talk at Stanford Medicine Department of Psychiatry, California. Hosted by the Stanford Psychedelic Science Network, Stanford University (August)
2024 “Psychedelic Integration and Society”, invited talk for the Hopkins-Oxford Psychedelic Ethics (HOPE) summit, Washington DC, organized by researchers from Oxford University and Johns Hopkins University (August)
2024 “Psychedelic awe and wonder in socio-cultural context” invited talk for Interdisciplinary Conference for Psychedelic Research, Haarlem, The Netherlands (June)
2024 “Writing Ethnography for Anthropologists and Others.” Presentation given in seminar “Anthropology by the Century”, Society of Fellows, The University of Hong Kong. (April)
2024 “Paradoxes of patient autonomy in clinical psychedelic therapy”, seminar for the Institute of Philosophy of Mind and Cognition, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan. (February)
2024 “Psychedelic Atmospherics: Mood and Meaning in Psychedelic Medicine Spaces”, presentation for Psychedelic Intersections symposium, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, USA (February – Invited speaker with $1,500 USD honorarium).
2024 “Inside the Emerging Psychedelic Underground in China”, public talk for The Psychedelic Humanities Salon in collaboration with The New School for Social Research, Department of Anthropology, New York, USA. (February).
2023 “Psychedelic Therapy as Form of Life”, presentation delivered for “Science, Medicine, and Technology” series at Centre for Medicine and the Humanities, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
2023 “Speaking the Unspeakable: Metaphor and Narrative in Psychedelic Medicine Experiences” Public Talk at the Hong Kong Museum of History in collaboration with The Hong Kong Anthropological Society, TST, Hong Kong.
2023 “Wonder and Healing at an Ayahuasca Tourism Centre, Peru”. Paper given at Psychedelic Science conference, Denver, CO. USA.
2023 “Opening the blackbox of clinical psychedelic therapies”, presentation delivered with Dr Nicolas Langlitz for the Contemporary Issues in Bioethics and Health Humanities Series, Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit, The University of Hong Kong.
2022 “Indigenous Amazonian Medicine in a Capitalist World” Presented a public talk jointly hosted by HKU Centre for Humanities and Medicine and Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit. Discussant: Dr Glenn Shepard (American Museum of Natural History) and was convened by Dr Laura Meek (Centre for the Humanities and Medicine).
2022 “Beyond the Substance: Psychedelics and the Challenge of Medical Research and Drug Policy” – I was discussant on Dr Ido Hartogsohn’s talk. Global Health and Humanities Book Talk Series. CHM. The University of Hong Kong.
2022 Lecture on the globalization of Indigenous Amazonian healing practices for a class in the Masters of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, The New School, New York.
2022 Lecture on Medical Anthropology at German Swiss High School
2022 Lecture on “Indigenous Australian Health and the Environment” to undergraduates at Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong.
2019 “Valuing otherness as a potent medicine: examining bodies and health in a Shipibo ayahuasca tourist lodge, Peru”, Australian Anthropological Society. Australian National University, Canberra.
2019 “From jaguars to ego-death: thoughts on the medicalization of ayahuasca” – World Ayahuasca Conference, Girona, Spain, June.
2019 “Amazonian purgatives and the social body” – World Humanities Forum, Xiamen, China, April.