Decolonization is a metaphor towards a different ethic. The case from psychedelic studies

Abstract

Indigenous psychedelic uses have long been imbricated with colonialism and its afterlives. Amidst tensions from accelerating investor interest in psychedelics and calls to decolonize research and practices, we argue that the study of psychedelics is troubled by dualisms used in both colonial and decolonial thought: subject and object, self and other, culture and nature, synthetic and natural, the colonizer and the indigenous, the literal and the metaphorical. Feminist and decolonial theory as well as a discussion of metaphor support our argument that the study of psychedelics often lacks critical engagement with these dualisms. A narrow understanding of coloniality hinders far-reaching critiques of contemporary capitalism, including progressive colonization of the life-world and commodification of psychedelic experiences. Fears that decolonization is becoming just a ‘metaphor’ implicitly reaffirm the conceptual power dynamics of colonization. In research on psychedelics, decolonization as a critical metaphor enables reassessing problematic distinctions that shape thinking, material realities, experiences.