Psicodélicos S. A.: reflexiones sobre la capitalización y el corporativismo de las plantas de poder
Genlizzie Elizabeth Garibay Munguía
INTERdisciplina August 30, 2025 DOI: 10.22201/ceiich.24485705e.2025.37.92500 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Ayahuasca |
| Keywords | Commodification Indigenous Perspective graphical Hegemony Power physics Biopower Limiting Critical theory Reflexivity Environmental ethics Michel foucault Neoliberalism international relations Cultural studies Object grammar |
| Key points | Argues that contemporary psychedelic capitalism reproduces biopiracy and bioappropriation by extracting ancestral knowledge and entheogens from indigenous contexts for commercial products, reinforcing inequalities. |
Abstract
This article aims to understand how contemporary psychedelic capitalism, through medicalization, regulation, and commodification of ancestral psychoactive substances (such as psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, ayahuasca and others), reproduces dynamics of biopiracy and bioappropriation that exploit the territories, knowledge, and practices of indigenous communities. From a critical perspective grounded in the theory of the coloniality of power, the paper examines how the psychedelic industry of the Global North, supported by hegemonic biomedical and legal frameworks, extracts these knowledges and entheogens from their cultural contexts to transform them into commercial products, thereby reinforcing social, economic, and epistemic inequalities. Additionally, it analyzes the role of the United States’ war on drugs as a biopolitical device that regulates and criminalizes these practices, limiting access to and the use of alternative forms of knowledge.
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 |