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The economics of ayahuasca: money, markets, and the value of the vine

Kenneth W. Tupper

September 1, 2016 DOI: 10.4324/9781315551425-16 (opens in new tab)

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Characteristics Theoretical or philosophical paper
Topics Ayahuasca
Keywords Vine Value mathematics Value for money Horticulture Ecology Statistics Public economics
Citations 5
Key points Argues that ayahuasca's commodification in a global supply chain challenges contemporary mainstream economic knowledge and thought.

Abstract

Introduction The field of ayahuasca studies has emerged as a thoroughly interdisciplinary academic pursuit in the early twenty-first century, with research occurring in areas such as ethnobotany, neuropsychology, psychiatry, religious studies, anthropology, and drug policy studies. In each of these domains, the object of research – ayahuasca – is represented through a variety of social constructions: an Amazonian vine, a traditional medicine, a religious sacrament, a plant teacher, and a "drug" (Tupper, 2011). However, in this chapter, I consider ayahuasca as a different kind of socially constructed artifact: a material commodity, increasingly circulating in a global supply chain of monetary exchange. In so doing, I invoke an academic field that has not yet taken much interest in ayahuasca, that of economics. My discussion covers how ayahuasca is emerging as an object of exchange in the modern transnational economic sphere, and takes an exploratory turn into how this emergence may present a challenge to contemporary mainstream economic knowledge and thought.

Comparable studies

Other theoretical and historical papers on ayahuasca, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
The globalization of ayahuasca: Harm reduction or benefit maximization? 2006 Theoretical or philosophical paper
Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond 2014 Theoretical or philosophical paper
The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience 2003 Theoretical or philosophical paper
Towards psychedelic apprenticeship: Developing a gentle touch for the mediation and validation of psychedelic-induced insights and revelations. 2022 Theoretical or philosophical paper
Ayahuasca healing beyond the Amazon: the globalization of a traditional indigenous entheogenic practice 2008 Theoretical or philosophical paper

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Cited by 5

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