Vegetative value: promissory horizons of therapeutic innovation in the global circulation of ayahuasca

Abstract

Ayahuasca is a herbal brew that is widespread in Indigenous Upper Amazon and has undergone global expansion in the last decade. As it is taken up in an ever-growing range of ritual or experimental practices questions of authority, authenticity, propriety or safety become acute. This case allows us to interrogate contemporary processes of value-making as radically different and highly stratified values encounter each other, on the brink of a possible pharmaceuticalization of ayahuasca. I argue that ayahuasca is not fully captured by the value logics of capital and examine the ways in which its promissory dimensions, global circulation and entry into practices of biomedical evidence-making position it in an ambiguous space that is nevertheless not entirely outside the logics of capital. The circuits of ayahuasca’s valorization reveal a complex coproduction of value that makes strategic use of various scales, sites and situations. The article examines the promissory horizon of extra-pharmacological value identified as key to understanding the efficacy of psychedelic substances such as ayahuasca. It then attends to the extraction of value from plants before closing with a reflexion on the politics of inclusion in the discussions that frame ayahuasca’s value globally.