A Historical Study of Plant-Based Healing in the Age of Biomedicine

近年来，人们对生物医学越来越不满，精神疾病的发病率也在上升，这促使患者寻找其他治疗方法。越来越多的新闻报道、畅销书、电视连续剧和科学期刊文章开始表明，来自土著和民间实践的植物治疗为那些生物医学未解决或忽视的痛苦提供了一线希望。这样的描述往往强化了两种传统的历史叙述：首先，从20世纪50年代末到60年代末，这些基于植物的疗法被誉为医学奇迹，但在几次科学和文化争议之后，它们被社会所抛弃，实际上结束了对裸盖菇素、麦角酸二乙胺和死藤水的科学研究；第二，这些土著和民间传统是静态的，随着时间和空间的变化而保持不变。然而，这个博士论文项目表明，这些历史叙述是不完整的。通过关注死藤水，一种来自亚马逊西北部的植物混合物，这项研究为这些历史叙述提供了重要的纠正，并加入了一个日益增长的研究机构，强调民间与土著知识和生物医学之间的动态关系。这个项目重建了19世纪末到20世纪末科学家、当地知识实践者和治疗师与死藤水之间的关系。根据从档案研究、口述历史和访谈、博物馆收藏和出版资料中收集的定性数据，这个历史项目回应了两个主要的研究问题：1)为什么死藤水能吸引几代多学科和跨国科学家的关注？该项目的初步档案研究表明，科学家利用死藤水使他们的学科专业化，并开发生物勘探机会，但成功有限。然而，民间和土著的观点往往在这些来源中缺失，这导致了本项目的第二个主要研究问题：2)死藤水研究的后果是什么，包括人类和非人类？该项目的研究结果将把土著和民间知识对现代科学的影响以及非人类行为体在知识生产中的作用置于背景中。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In recent years, a growing dissatisfaction with biomedicine and rising rates of mental illnesses have led patients to search for therapeutic alternatives. Numerous news reports, best-selling books, television series, and scientific journal articles have increasingly begun to suggest that plant-based healing from Indigenous and folk practices offers a glimpse of hope for those whose suffering has been unaddressed or neglected by biomedicine. Such portraits often reinforce two conventional historical narratives: first, that these plant-based therapies were heralded as medical miracles from the late 1950s to the late 1960s before several scientific and cultural controversies transformed them into social pariahs, effectively ending scientific studies of psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide, and ayahuasca; and second, that these Indigenous and folk traditions are static, remaining unchanged over time and space. This doctoral dissertation project, however, shows that these historical narratives are incomplete. By focusing on ayahuasca, a plant-based concoction from the northwestern Amazon, this research offers an important corrective to these historical narratives and joins a growing body of research that emphasizes the dynamic relationship between folk and Indigenous knowledge and biomedicine.This project reconstructs the relationship between scientists, local knowledge practitioners and healers, and ayahuasca from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. Drawing on qualitative data gathered from archival research, oral histories and interviews, museum collections, and published sources, this historical project responds to two main research questions: 1) Why has ayahuasca sustained the attention of generations of multidisciplinary and transnational scientists? Preliminary archival research for this project suggests that scientists leveraged ayahuasca to professionalize their disciplines and develop bioprospecting opportunities with limited success. Folk and Indigenous perspectives are, however, often absent from these sources leading to this project’s second major research question: 2) What were the consequences of ayahuasca research, including humans and non-humans? Findings from this project will contextualize the influence of Indigenous and folk knowledge on modern science as well as the role of non-human actors in knowledge production.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.