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

近年来，人们对生物医学的不满与日俱增，精神疾病的发病率也在上升，这促使患者寻找替代疗法。大量的新闻报道、畅销书、电视连续剧和科学期刊文章越来越多地开始表明，从土著和民间习俗中以植物为基础的治愈方法为那些生物医学没有解决或忽视了痛苦的人提供了一线希望。这样的肖像经常强化两种传统的历史叙述：第一，从20世纪50年代末到60年代末，这些以植物为基础的疗法被誉为医学奇迹，后来几次科学和文化争议将它们转变为社会弃儿，有效地结束了对裸盖菇素、麦角酸二乙胺和阿瓦斯卡的科学研究；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。通过关注亚马逊西北部的一种以植物为基础的混合物，这项研究提供了对这些历史叙述的重要纠正，并加入了越来越多的研究，强调民间和土著知识与生物医学之间的动态关系。该项目重建了科学家、当地知识从业者和治疗师与19世纪末至20世纪末的阿雅瓦斯卡之间的关系。利用从档案研究、口述历史和采访、博物馆藏品和出版资料中收集的定性数据，这个历史项目回答了两个主要的研究问题：1)为什么阿亚瓦斯卡持续受到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，科学家利用阿亚瓦斯卡使他们的学科专业化，并开发生物勘探机会，但收效甚微。然而，民间和土著的观点往往从这些来源中消失，导致该项目的第二个主要研究问题：2)包括人类和非人类在内的阿雅瓦斯卡研究的结果是什么？这个项目的发现将结合土著和民间知识对现代科学的影响以及非人类行为者在知识生产中的作用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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.