This dissertation research examines and how psychedelics are drawn into unique sociohistorical an... more This dissertation research examines and how psychedelics are drawn into unique sociohistorical and political arrangements, as well as how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin 'magic mushrooms' are used as tools of subjectivation. Guided by literatures in philosophy, critical theory, and the social sciences that focus on subjectivity, critical posthumanism, and assemblage theory, I argue that psychedelics are drawn into variegated assemblages, each of which reifies and mobilizes psychedelics in highly specific ways that reflect implicit conceptions of the world and the self. Drawing on ethnographic and netnographic methods, I conducted 30 semi-structured interviews and analyzed 100 psilocybin trip reports from the online forum Shroomery.org. I used this data to demonstrate how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin mushrooms are commonly used as technologies of the self, or practices that individuals engage in as a means of affecting a change in their subjectivity. By bringing the concepts of technologies of the self and psychedelic assemblages to the fore, this research provides a window into the politics of the self in the Anthropocene.
This dissertation research examines and how psychedelics are drawn
into unique sociohistorical an... more This dissertation research examines and how psychedelics are drawn into unique sociohistorical and political arrangements, as well as how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin ‘magic mushrooms’ are used as tools of subjectivation. Guided by literatures in philosophy, critical theory, and the social sciences that focus on subjectivity, critical posthumanism, and assemblage theory, I argue that psychedelics are drawn into variegated assemblages, each of which reifies and mobilizes psychedelics in highly specific ways that reflect implicit conceptions of the world and the self. Drawing on ethnographic and netnographic methods, I conducted 30 semi-structured interviews and analyzed 100 psilocybin trip reports from the online forum Shroomery.org. I used this data to demonstrate how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin mushrooms are commonly used as technologies of the self, or practices that individuals engage in as a means of affecting a change in their subjectivity. By bringing the concepts of technologies of the self and psychedelic assemblages to the fore, this research provides a window into the politics of the self in the Anthropocene
Geographical analyses of posthuman thought have called for the need to develop a critical form of... more Geographical analyses of posthuman thought have called for the need to develop a critical form of posthumanism that neither rehashes the pitfalls of humanism, nor promulgates a universalized and ungrounded subject position. This article demonstrates how recent advances in critical posthumanism work to address the limitations of posthuman thought by offering a unified philosophical framework that situates knowledge claims and reimagines human subjectivity and human-nonhuman relations. Critical posthumanism not only synthesizes several of the political, methodological, and philosophical strands of posthuman thought that geographers and philosophers have drawn out, but it also foregrounds an affirmative ethico-political ethos toward a historical moment characterized by socioecological injustices, intersectional inequalities, and advanced capitalist economic systems. By separating itself from transhumanist and epochal forms of posthumanism, critical posthumanism offers cultural geographers concentrating on human-nature relations a more philosophically rigorous, socially accountable, and critical way of approaching the stakes involved in posthumanist discussions.
Traditional understandings of extraterritoriality have overlooked
human consciousness as an intim... more Traditional understandings of extraterritoriality have overlooked human consciousness as an intimate province of territorial governance. Whereas traditional approaches to extraterritoriality often adopt a modernist understanding of territory, this article expands on the concept by referring to extraterritoriality as the process and practice of discovering, reifying and intervening in new domains of territorial governance. Insofar as territorial practices adapt in accordance with emergent knowledges and technologies, the realm of human consciousness appeared as an object of governmental interest during the mid-twentieth century alongside advances in neuroscience and psychopharmacology. Through the subsequent illegalisation of psychedelic plants and fungi, in combination with the hegemonic norms established through disciplinary institutions, the full spectrum of human consciousness has since become territorialised as a new domain of governmental intervention and management. As such, this article argues that the regulation of cognition enforced through drug prohibitions and sanctions enfold human consciousness as an extended domain of extraterritoriality.
ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 2021
This article provides a rationale for understanding the United States' war on drugs as a biopolit... more This article provides a rationale for understanding the United States' war on drugs as a biopolitical enterprise that restricts the states of consciousness humans can avail themselves to. Given the intimate relationship between psychoactive drugs and human cognition, perception, and behavior, the tactics of illegalization, persecution, and misinformation mobilized by the war on drugs have inherently delimited the conscious states available to the population. Drug regulations and prohibitions in contemporary US society have resulted in a biopolitical normalization of consciousness that reinvokes colonial refrains of domination historically mobilized against traditional ritual, healing, and spiritual practices and pharmacopeias. From a decolonial perspective, the biopolitical delimitation of consciousness ensuing from the war on drugs can be understood as a form of epistemic hegemony insofar as the alternate states brought about by certain drugs, in this case psychedelic substances, are delegitimized despite an array of evidence attesting to their epistemological, therapeutic, and philosophical import. By examining contemporary research on classic psychedelics, this article illustrates how psychedelics temporarily suppress the top-down structures which maintain normal waking consciousness, including the perceptual and conceptual boundaries that influence behavior. As such, this article examines how classic psychedelic drugs and experiences can be understood as anarchic agents that can assist in decolonizing the spaces of consciousness wherein unyielding colonial patterns of thought have become concretized.
Ontological and decolonial designers have called for a reorientation of the fundamental relations... more Ontological and decolonial designers have called for a reorientation of the fundamental relations between humans, things, and the world away from their entrenchment in modernist and colonial thought. Both ontological and decolonial design therefore share the vision of transcending design’s modern philosophical inheritances to allow for the flourishing of new ontologies of interrelatedness. Whereas some radical design theorists have mobilized border thinking, subjugated knowledges, and alternative ways of being as means of challenging modernist epistemologies and ontologies, this article instead examines the role that alternate states of consciousness may play in the formation of new ontological designs. In drawing on radical design and decolonial theory, I argue that psychedelic experiences and states of consciousness can potentially serve as decolonial tools for designing consciousness, and thereby assist in reorienting human social and environmental relations toward ontologies of relatedness and interconnectedness.
This dissertation research examines and how psychedelics are drawn into unique sociohistorical an... more This dissertation research examines and how psychedelics are drawn into unique sociohistorical and political arrangements, as well as how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin 'magic mushrooms' are used as tools of subjectivation. Guided by literatures in philosophy, critical theory, and the social sciences that focus on subjectivity, critical posthumanism, and assemblage theory, I argue that psychedelics are drawn into variegated assemblages, each of which reifies and mobilizes psychedelics in highly specific ways that reflect implicit conceptions of the world and the self. Drawing on ethnographic and netnographic methods, I conducted 30 semi-structured interviews and analyzed 100 psilocybin trip reports from the online forum Shroomery.org. I used this data to demonstrate how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin mushrooms are commonly used as technologies of the self, or practices that individuals engage in as a means of affecting a change in their subjectivity. By bringing the concepts of technologies of the self and psychedelic assemblages to the fore, this research provides a window into the politics of the self in the Anthropocene.
This dissertation research examines and how psychedelics are drawn
into unique sociohistorical an... more This dissertation research examines and how psychedelics are drawn into unique sociohistorical and political arrangements, as well as how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin ‘magic mushrooms’ are used as tools of subjectivation. Guided by literatures in philosophy, critical theory, and the social sciences that focus on subjectivity, critical posthumanism, and assemblage theory, I argue that psychedelics are drawn into variegated assemblages, each of which reifies and mobilizes psychedelics in highly specific ways that reflect implicit conceptions of the world and the self. Drawing on ethnographic and netnographic methods, I conducted 30 semi-structured interviews and analyzed 100 psilocybin trip reports from the online forum Shroomery.org. I used this data to demonstrate how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin mushrooms are commonly used as technologies of the self, or practices that individuals engage in as a means of affecting a change in their subjectivity. By bringing the concepts of technologies of the self and psychedelic assemblages to the fore, this research provides a window into the politics of the self in the Anthropocene
Geographical analyses of posthuman thought have called for the need to develop a critical form of... more Geographical analyses of posthuman thought have called for the need to develop a critical form of posthumanism that neither rehashes the pitfalls of humanism, nor promulgates a universalized and ungrounded subject position. This article demonstrates how recent advances in critical posthumanism work to address the limitations of posthuman thought by offering a unified philosophical framework that situates knowledge claims and reimagines human subjectivity and human-nonhuman relations. Critical posthumanism not only synthesizes several of the political, methodological, and philosophical strands of posthuman thought that geographers and philosophers have drawn out, but it also foregrounds an affirmative ethico-political ethos toward a historical moment characterized by socioecological injustices, intersectional inequalities, and advanced capitalist economic systems. By separating itself from transhumanist and epochal forms of posthumanism, critical posthumanism offers cultural geographers concentrating on human-nature relations a more philosophically rigorous, socially accountable, and critical way of approaching the stakes involved in posthumanist discussions.
Traditional understandings of extraterritoriality have overlooked
human consciousness as an intim... more Traditional understandings of extraterritoriality have overlooked human consciousness as an intimate province of territorial governance. Whereas traditional approaches to extraterritoriality often adopt a modernist understanding of territory, this article expands on the concept by referring to extraterritoriality as the process and practice of discovering, reifying and intervening in new domains of territorial governance. Insofar as territorial practices adapt in accordance with emergent knowledges and technologies, the realm of human consciousness appeared as an object of governmental interest during the mid-twentieth century alongside advances in neuroscience and psychopharmacology. Through the subsequent illegalisation of psychedelic plants and fungi, in combination with the hegemonic norms established through disciplinary institutions, the full spectrum of human consciousness has since become territorialised as a new domain of governmental intervention and management. As such, this article argues that the regulation of cognition enforced through drug prohibitions and sanctions enfold human consciousness as an extended domain of extraterritoriality.
ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 2021
This article provides a rationale for understanding the United States' war on drugs as a biopolit... more This article provides a rationale for understanding the United States' war on drugs as a biopolitical enterprise that restricts the states of consciousness humans can avail themselves to. Given the intimate relationship between psychoactive drugs and human cognition, perception, and behavior, the tactics of illegalization, persecution, and misinformation mobilized by the war on drugs have inherently delimited the conscious states available to the population. Drug regulations and prohibitions in contemporary US society have resulted in a biopolitical normalization of consciousness that reinvokes colonial refrains of domination historically mobilized against traditional ritual, healing, and spiritual practices and pharmacopeias. From a decolonial perspective, the biopolitical delimitation of consciousness ensuing from the war on drugs can be understood as a form of epistemic hegemony insofar as the alternate states brought about by certain drugs, in this case psychedelic substances, are delegitimized despite an array of evidence attesting to their epistemological, therapeutic, and philosophical import. By examining contemporary research on classic psychedelics, this article illustrates how psychedelics temporarily suppress the top-down structures which maintain normal waking consciousness, including the perceptual and conceptual boundaries that influence behavior. As such, this article examines how classic psychedelic drugs and experiences can be understood as anarchic agents that can assist in decolonizing the spaces of consciousness wherein unyielding colonial patterns of thought have become concretized.
Ontological and decolonial designers have called for a reorientation of the fundamental relations... more Ontological and decolonial designers have called for a reorientation of the fundamental relations between humans, things, and the world away from their entrenchment in modernist and colonial thought. Both ontological and decolonial design therefore share the vision of transcending design’s modern philosophical inheritances to allow for the flourishing of new ontologies of interrelatedness. Whereas some radical design theorists have mobilized border thinking, subjugated knowledges, and alternative ways of being as means of challenging modernist epistemologies and ontologies, this article instead examines the role that alternate states of consciousness may play in the formation of new ontological designs. In drawing on radical design and decolonial theory, I argue that psychedelic experiences and states of consciousness can potentially serve as decolonial tools for designing consciousness, and thereby assist in reorienting human social and environmental relations toward ontologies of relatedness and interconnectedness.
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into unique sociohistorical and political arrangements, as well as how
psychedelic experiences with psilocybin ‘magic mushrooms’ are used
as tools of subjectivation. Guided by literatures in philosophy, critical
theory, and the social sciences that focus on subjectivity, critical
posthumanism, and assemblage theory, I argue that psychedelics are
drawn into variegated assemblages, each of which reifies and mobilizes
psychedelics in highly specific ways that reflect implicit conceptions of
the world and the self. Drawing on ethnographic and netnographic
methods, I conducted 30 semi-structured interviews and analyzed 100
psilocybin trip reports from the online forum Shroomery.org. I used
this data to demonstrate how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin
mushrooms are commonly used as technologies of the self, or
practices that individuals engage in as a means of affecting a change in
their subjectivity. By bringing the concepts of technologies of the self
and psychedelic assemblages to the fore, this research provides a
window into the politics of the self in the Anthropocene
human consciousness as an intimate province of territorial
governance. Whereas traditional approaches to extraterritoriality
often adopt a modernist understanding of territory, this article
expands on the concept by referring to extraterritoriality as the
process and practice of discovering, reifying and intervening in
new domains of territorial governance. Insofar as territorial
practices adapt in accordance with emergent knowledges and
technologies, the realm of human consciousness appeared as an
object of governmental interest during the mid-twentieth century
alongside advances in neuroscience and psychopharmacology.
Through the subsequent illegalisation of psychedelic plants and
fungi, in combination with the hegemonic norms established
through disciplinary institutions, the full spectrum of human
consciousness has since become territorialised as a new domain
of governmental intervention and management. As such, this
article argues that the regulation of cognition enforced through
drug prohibitions and sanctions enfold human consciousness as
an extended domain of extraterritoriality.
away from their entrenchment in modernist and colonial thought. Both ontological and decolonial design therefore share the vision of transcending design’s modern philosophical inheritances to allow for the
flourishing of new ontologies of interrelatedness. Whereas some radical design theorists have mobilized border thinking, subjugated knowledges, and alternative ways of being as means of challenging modernist epistemologies and ontologies, this article instead examines the role that alternate states of consciousness may play in the formation of new
ontological designs. In drawing on radical design and decolonial theory, I argue that psychedelic experiences and states of consciousness can potentially serve as decolonial tools for designing consciousness, and
thereby assist in reorienting human social and environmental relations toward ontologies of relatedness and interconnectedness.
into unique sociohistorical and political arrangements, as well as how
psychedelic experiences with psilocybin ‘magic mushrooms’ are used
as tools of subjectivation. Guided by literatures in philosophy, critical
theory, and the social sciences that focus on subjectivity, critical
posthumanism, and assemblage theory, I argue that psychedelics are
drawn into variegated assemblages, each of which reifies and mobilizes
psychedelics in highly specific ways that reflect implicit conceptions of
the world and the self. Drawing on ethnographic and netnographic
methods, I conducted 30 semi-structured interviews and analyzed 100
psilocybin trip reports from the online forum Shroomery.org. I used
this data to demonstrate how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin
mushrooms are commonly used as technologies of the self, or
practices that individuals engage in as a means of affecting a change in
their subjectivity. By bringing the concepts of technologies of the self
and psychedelic assemblages to the fore, this research provides a
window into the politics of the self in the Anthropocene
human consciousness as an intimate province of territorial
governance. Whereas traditional approaches to extraterritoriality
often adopt a modernist understanding of territory, this article
expands on the concept by referring to extraterritoriality as the
process and practice of discovering, reifying and intervening in
new domains of territorial governance. Insofar as territorial
practices adapt in accordance with emergent knowledges and
technologies, the realm of human consciousness appeared as an
object of governmental interest during the mid-twentieth century
alongside advances in neuroscience and psychopharmacology.
Through the subsequent illegalisation of psychedelic plants and
fungi, in combination with the hegemonic norms established
through disciplinary institutions, the full spectrum of human
consciousness has since become territorialised as a new domain
of governmental intervention and management. As such, this
article argues that the regulation of cognition enforced through
drug prohibitions and sanctions enfold human consciousness as
an extended domain of extraterritoriality.
away from their entrenchment in modernist and colonial thought. Both ontological and decolonial design therefore share the vision of transcending design’s modern philosophical inheritances to allow for the
flourishing of new ontologies of interrelatedness. Whereas some radical design theorists have mobilized border thinking, subjugated knowledges, and alternative ways of being as means of challenging modernist epistemologies and ontologies, this article instead examines the role that alternate states of consciousness may play in the formation of new
ontological designs. In drawing on radical design and decolonial theory, I argue that psychedelic experiences and states of consciousness can potentially serve as decolonial tools for designing consciousness, and
thereby assist in reorienting human social and environmental relations toward ontologies of relatedness and interconnectedness.