Ficto‐Primitive Capital: What Wellness Seekers Gain From Practicing Shamanism and Other Healing Traditions
British Journal of Sociology April 11, 2026 Catherine Tan
The wellness industry commercializes non-Western and Indigenous healing traditions, including shamanistic practices, for North American and European consumers. This ethnographic study, based on participant observation and 41 interviews with self-identified shamanic and spiritual healers in the United States, introduces the concept of ficto-primitive capital to describe the status individuals pursue by cultivating practices, objects, and relationships associated with communities they imagine as pre-modern and pre-industrial. These 'American shamans' seek to heal maladies by collecting traditions from cultures such as the Q'ero people and the Sámi, aiming to escape problems of Western modernity like loss of community and isolation. Ironically, despite professed respect for these communities, they become agents of cultural imperialism, exploiting global inequalities.