Narrating the Unspeakable
Journal of Extreme Anthropology January 6, 2020 Shana Harris 9 citations
People who undergo psychedelic experiences often describe them as deeply personal and hard to put into words, yet they still try to narrate them. Based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork at drug treatment centers in Baja California, Mexico, this article examines how individuals in psychedelic-based treatment retell or struggle to retell their experiences. The author argues that the ineffable quality of psychedelic experiences poses unique challenges for anthropological study, resisting narrativization and creating both ethnographic and epistemological obstacles to producing knowledge about these substances and their therapeutic use.