Learn About Culture at Wonderland

This workshop will challenge participants to take Indigenous claims on plant medicines seriously, to learn about traditional cultures and practices, and to engage in collaborative, horizontal and non-transactional relationships. With a combined 35 years of experience drinking and studying ayahuasca and other plant medicines, and 20 years of fieldwork in Mexico and South America, workshop facilitators will address the inherent inequities and power imbalances in the so-called “psychedelic renaissance”. A grounded analysis of Indigenous peoples and plants’ status in the psychedelic ecosystem will provide a framework for reconciling the increased demand for sacred plants and ceremony with the romanticization and fetishization of the cultures who have been using these plants since time immemorial. We will discuss the exploitative dynamics of partnerships between the Global North and the Global South, with the goal of outlining a more meaningful and impactful approach to respectfully engaging with plant medicines and working towards a process of reciprocity. Chacruna’s Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative of the Americas (IRI) will serve as a reflection of all these considerations; our contribution to trying to support Indigenous-led movements for self-determination and sovereignty that demonstrates a grassroots, ground-up approach. Attendees will engage in a modest and mindful, co-creative exercise to re-think and explore the true possibilities of decolonization and cultural exchange in the psychedelic space, integrating the political concerns emphasized by Indigenous activists and honoring their struggles for territorial and cultural autonomy.