Journeys to Others and Lessons of Self: Carlos Castaneda in Camposcape
Journal of Transnational American Studies 2012 DOI: 10.5070/t842015753 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Counterculture Bourgeoisie Gender studies Indigenous Politics Aesthetics Inscribed figure Heterotopia medicine Anthropology Art history |
| Citations | 35 |
| Key points | Argues that Castaneda's shamanism series used a masculinist discourse to neutralize gender trouble in the counterculture while promoting an idealized, indigenous Mexican space as an escape from bourgeois values. |
Abstract
Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, this article examines the importance of place and gender within constructions of race politics in Carlos Castaneda’s series on shamanism. Championing a “separate reality” predicated on an indigenous worldview, Castaneda’s lessons invited transnational middle-class youth to "journey" alongside him to camposcape—an anachronistic and idealized countryside—as a means to escape the bourgeois values of their homelands and find spiritual fulfillment in a timeless and "authentic" Mexico. Castaneda’s work proposed new viable spaces of difference in Mexico, yet inscribed these spaces with a masculinist discourse that served to neutralize the gender trouble within the counterculture movement in both Mexico and the US.