Neuro-plastic Shamanism? Towards a Political Ontology of Whiteness and the Psychedelic Zeitgeist
This paper argues for reorienting our investigation of the psychedelic zeitgeist towards the longitudinal history of psychedelia with a committed attention to its relationship to colonialism. It demonstrates that clinical psychedelic medicine appears to sustain the reproduction of modern colonial wh...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
American Anthropological Association
2022
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| In: |
Anthropology of consciousness
Year: 2022, Volume: 33, Issue: 2, Pages: 412-442 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Weißsein
/ Politics
/ Ontology
/ Psychedelic experience
/ Shamanism
/ Decolonisation
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| RelBib Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion VA Philosophy ZB Sociology ZD Psychology |
| Further subjects: | B
Ontology
B Sublime B Trauma B Psychedelia B Whiteness |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This paper argues for reorienting our investigation of the psychedelic zeitgeist towards the longitudinal history of psychedelia with a committed attention to its relationship to colonialism. It demonstrates that clinical psychedelic medicine appears to sustain the reproduction of modern colonial whiteness in line with Elizabeth Povinelli’s theorization of late liberalism. It also challenges the notion of a restricted or segregated academic area for psychedelic studies. Instead, it is imperative to place discussions of contemporary plant medicine in line with broader contemporary discussions in cultural anthropology around political ontology and decoloniality. This paper attempts to demonstrate that doing so may challenge our understanding of whiteness—reinterpreting it—by recourse to the history of the psychedelic counterculture, as a form of complex trauma, and thus potentially demonstrating new implications for decoloniality and its praxis. |
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| ISSN: | 1556-3537 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Anthropology of consciousness
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/anoc.12159 |