Latin American Studies Meet Psychedelic Studies?
The Birth of the Kieri; Guadalupe González Ríos (Ketsetemahé teukarieya) 1923 - 2003; 1973; Wool yarn on campeche wax and wood; 1.22 x 1.22 meters; Negrín Family Collection; Wixarika Research Center; ©Juan Negrín 1973 - 2018 All rights reserved.
Many top research universities in the US and elsewhere are becoming leaders in cutting-edge research on psychedelics. The University of Wisconsin–Madison recently launched the Transdisciplinary Center for Research in Psychoactive Substances (TCRPS), aiming to coordinate ongoing research and education in psychedelic compounds, and to promote outreach in this rapidly expanding field. This Center fosters strong research on clinical effects of psychedelics for treatment of mental health, trauma, and addiction disorders, but also includes the historical, cultural and social aspects of this renewed attention to psychedelics, and its implications for Latin American Indigenous groups and society in general.
Why and how shall Latin American studies programs participate, support, and engage in the emerging research on psychedelics in the US and elsewhere?
Research in psychedelics practically disappeared in the US since the 1970s with the Controlled Substances Act, which labeled psychedelic substances as Schedule 1. A search at UW Library for theses and dissertations using the words “psychedelic,” “psychotropic,” “halluci*” yielded only 12 citations, most of them referring to use of medication for ADHD and children learning. An informal Survey sent last year to 33 Latin American Studies programs in their respective universities in the US included the following question: “In recent years, have you noticed an increase or emerging interest among your Latin American studies faculty and/or graduate students in the topic of psychedelics?” Of the 14 responses received, only 4 reported an emergent or significant interest in this new field. We believe this is about to change with the renewed interest in research on psychedelics. In the past three annual conferences of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) LACIS has promoted panels on the status of historic and contemporary research on psychedelics in the region.
Housed in the School of Pharmacy, the TCRPS brings together researchers and investigators across the UW–Madison campus—including the School of Medicine and Public Health, College of Letters & Science, School of Human Ecology, Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and School of Education—to foster collaborative, transdisciplinary research. The Center is conducting scholarly research into the science, history, and cultural impact of psychedelic agents, in addition to studying the potential for therapeutic use of psychoactive substances.
Such a center is important to our program (Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies - LACIS) because many of the psychedelic substances have a long history of use in Indigenous groups in the region for millennia. The book Plants of the Gods reports that there are about 130 species with hallucinogenic properties in the Western Hemisphere, used by several dozen Indigenous cultures. Mexico is the country with the world’s richest biodiversity and use of hallucinogenic plants and fungi, followed by South America, where multiple cultures still use a broad variety of species. About 70 species are better documented, the most important ones being: various Psilocybe species (or ‘magic mushrooms”), Peyote (Lophophora williamsii), San Pedro cactus (Echinopsis pachanoi), and Ayahuasca, which is prepared with a combination of several tropical vines and the bark of a shrub (Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis). Many Indigenous cultures in Latin America still use and conserve entheogens (substances that foster feelings of inspiration, often in a religious or "spiritual" manner) and conceive healing (physical or psychological) as a process to restore spiritual balance with the aid of such substances. A wealth of wisdom and knowledge in Indigenous cultures, which resisted hundreds of years of colonial suppression, and pressures to conform to national identities, is now entering into a new phase of contact with the Western world and calls for respectful and productive dialogue.
The work of UW graduate students provided the perfect fit for LACIS to participate in this emerging field of work, exemplified by the research work of Amanda Pratt (English), Gabriel Carter (English) and Ana Maria Ortiz Bernal (Human Ecology), among others.
The UW TCRPS also will support cutting-edge, interdisciplinary educational programs to train the next generation of scientists, teachers, and practitioners. The new center is a partner of the School of Pharmacy’s Master of Science program in Psychoactive Pharmaceutical Investigation, which offers the first accredited U.S. degree focusing on the study and therapeutic development of psychedelic compounds and related psychoactive drugs. The center also is part of the Capstone Certificate in Psychoactive Pharmaceutical Investigation. LACIS is preparing materials which will be utilized in various elective courses for these professional master’s programs.
One important aspect of the approach of LACIS as it engages in psychedelic research is to make connections and learn from the scholarly work of researchers in Mexico and elsewhere.
Two recent activities serve as an example of how LACIS is participating in events organized in conjunction with TCRPS. The October 2021 Wisconsin Science Festival, an annual event for general diffusion about diverse topics, included a panel entitled “Magic Mushrooms? New Research on Fungus-Derived Hallucinogens at UW-Madison and Beyond”. In November 2021, the Center convened an international Symposium to present the state of the art of research in this field. LACIS contributed to the Symposium with two presentations: One focused on the history and status of psychedelics in Latin America (Vargas) and the other on the status of an Intercultural Clinic in Sonora, Mexico, that is using psychedelic compounds in the setting of mental health treatments for Indigenous communities. Research focuses on developing and implementing an integrative mental health program in collaboration with specialist researchers and traditional doctors from diverse cultures related to the Yaqui tribe, in Sonora, Mexico. They extend mental health projects via inquiries into the human dimensions (social, cultural, and historical factors) at play in each case (Ortiz).
Currently, LACIS is collaborating on a project with the National Autonomous University in Mexico (UNAM), the Indigenous Medicine Conservation Fund, and other supporting organizations, focusing on the conservation status of the endemic Sonoran desert toad Incilius alvarius in Mexico and aiming to develop a legal framework for its management and conservation. The toad secretes a very potent psychoactive substance called 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT), much more powerful than LSD. The project aims to collect field data about the status of the toad populations, which has suffered intense pressure in the past ten years due to the interest in its psychedelic properties, and a false narrative of ancestral use. Knowing the status of the toad populations is crucial to promote protection measures for the species which currently is categorized as “of least concern” in the IUCN Red List and the Mexican legal category of species protection.
One important question that remains is: What does “Transdisciplinarity” mean in the emerging collaboration in psychedelic research at UW-Madison? How do the different activities and research projects fit within the overall aim to enhance research and teaching about psychedelics?
These questions are addressed in part by a research working group in the Center for Culture, History and Environment (CHE) of the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, led by graduate students Amanda Pratt, Gabriel Carter, and Ana Maria Ortiz Bernal. Under the umbrella of Psychedelic Humanities, this group builds on a roundtable that was addressed intersecting issues related to Indigenous water rights, the Sonoran Desert Toad’s conservation status, and mental health and substance abuse among Indigenous tribes assembled for CHE’s 2020 symposium on Environmental Justice in Multispecies Worlds.
In its biomedical and clinical research focus, the TCRPS seeks to increase participation in research by underrepresented groups. Under the direction of Prof. Cody Wenthur of the School of Pharmacy, the “Psychedelic Outcomes: Interaction of Environment, Self-Identity, and Success” (POIESIS) project aims at eliminating the disparities to enroll subjects from minority populations in clinical trials, historically targeted by biased enforcement of drug laws and unethical research protocols. The study also aims to adapt the “setting” (study room environment) in which psychedelic compounds are dosed, using racial and ethnic self-identity, and culturally-adaptive art selection and training protocols to enhance recruitment and experience of minority participants.
Under the direction of Prof. Lucas Richert, historian at the School of Pharmacy, a new project, “Pharmaceutical Inequalities” funded by the Outreach Fellowship of the Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center for Science & Technology Studies, aims to communicate, enhance, and question understanding of drug technologies, medication outcomes, as well as inclusion and stigmatization in pharmacy, scientific, and medical settings. The fellowship funds are being used to write blog posts and host podcasts for the Pointshistory.com blog. This is part of a larger initiative around developing programming explicitly aimed at engaging scholars around psychedelic humanities. The Psychedelic Pasts, Presents, and Futures Borghesi-Mellon workshop with funding from the Center for Humanities, will foster presentations and discussions about transdisciplinary psychedelic work on campus during this academic year.
English, Composition and Rhetoric PhD Candidate Amanda Pratt researches the role of psychedelic rhetoric in the cultural phenomenon of conspirituality and the relationship between psychedelic experience and development of health ideologies and literacies. This is especially relevant work when considering the role of conspirituality in anti-vax rhetoric, and the influx of anti-vax communities finding refuge from vaccine mandates in Latin American countries--often in places attractive to these communities in part due to their proximity to psychedelic retreats. This wave of migration is negatively impacting marginalized communities with vectors of disease, a phenomenon that is reminiscent of historical patterns of neo-colonial violence.
There is great potential to foster transdisciplinary research by bringing Latin American Studies and Psychedelic Studies in a dialogue that will enrich the past, the present and the future of the relation between humans and entheogens. As noted by Schultes et al., “progress in future studies [in psychedelics/entheogens] will be made only when they are based on integration of data from sundry fields – anthropology, botany, chemistry, history, medicine, mythology, pharmacology, philology, religion, and so on” (65). We expect a rich exchange of research, teaching and outreach among Latin American studies programs across the US and elsewhere, as this new field emerges.
About the Author
Alberto Vargas is the Associate Director of LACIS since 2005, and affiliate at the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, where he obtained his PhD. He currently teaches a Seminar on Sustainable Development and other LACIS courses. He received the 2021 Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Service to the University.
Works Cited
Schultes, Richard Evans, Albert Hofmann & Christopher Rätsch. 2001. Plants of the Gods. Revised and Expanded Edition. Healing Arts Press.
Shmitt, Preston. “Psychedelic Wonder Drugs: UW, Madison Leads the Way in a Potentially Transformative Field of Medicine” OnWisconsin https://onwisconsin.uwalumni.com/features/psychedelic-wonder-drugs/