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- Convenors:
-
Kai Blevins
(George Washington University)
Logan Neitzke-Spruill (Baylor College of Medicine)
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- Discussant:
-
Claudia Gertraud Schwarz
(Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences)
- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
- Location:
- NU-3B05
- Sessions:
- Friday 19 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
Short Abstract:
Hype is a pervasive and consequential phenomenon shaping knowledge production. This panel unpacks the function of hype in psychedelic studies. By examining these dynamics, this panel explores the role of STS scholarship in the production of knowledge about psychedelics.
Long Abstract:
Psychedelics are often represented as transformative technologies, and their potential to radically change individuals, medical practice, and scientific inquiry has only grown as a focal point for discussions about psychedelics in recent years. As many scholars have noted, this emergent field of research has been accompanied by a hype about psychedelics that has influenced not only public perceptions of psychedelic science, but perhaps even scientific practice itself (Yaden, Potash, and Griffiths 2022). Following scholars who argue that hype has accompanied the resurgence of psychedelics in science and society (Langlitz 2023, Devenot 2023), this panel invites contributions that unpack the function of hype in knowledge production about psychedelics. What ways of knowing and forms of expertise are privileged? Which sources and mode of evidence are being circulated? How is the political economy of psychedelic science organized? How is authority constructed in different domains of social life, and how does that relate to the legitimation of psychedelic science? How does hype function as a resource in scholarship about psychedelics, including for STS scholars? In answering these and related questions, this panel aims to create a space for exploring how STS scholarship can contribute to knowledge production about psychedelics while being mindful of the negative tendencies of hype to obscure critical lines of inquiry. We invite submissions that critically examine the role of hype in psychedelic studies as a launching pad for considering how we might leverage STS theories and methods to participate more ethically in the production of knowledge about psychedelics.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 19 July, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
Exploring the narrative around AI in psychedelics, this presentation highlights overlooked ethical issues within techno-optimism, advocating for a balanced, ethically informed approach to mental health advancements.
Paper long abstract:
The aim of this presentation is to critically explore the narrative regarding the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and psychedelics in mental health care. I will demonstrate how the techno-optimistic narrative forecasts revolutionary advancements in treatments through AI's capacity to analyze and interpret complex datasets from psychedelic research.
This narrative, informed by socio-technical imaginaries, suggests AI's pivotal role in deciphering the complex neurological impacts of psychedelics, analyzing vast data sets to uncover patterns in brain activity and accelerating the research process. AI's capabilities in data analysis and pattern recognition are envisioned to deepen understanding of psychedelics' therapeutic effects and streamline the development of new compounds, promising a future of enhanced mental health treatments through technological innovation.
This narrative, however, often overlooks the nuanced ethical considerations, such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the broader socio-ethical implications. This presentation advocates for the inclusion of these critical perspectives in the dominant discourse. It emphasizes the need for comprehensive ethical frameworks, regulatory oversight, and the integration of indigenous wisdom with technological innovation to navigate the complexities of this field responsibly. By examining the potential and pitfalls of AI in psychedelic research, the presentation calls for a balanced narrative that acknowledges both the transformative possibilities and the ethical challenges, aiming to ensure that the advancements in psychedelic therapy are pursued with integrity, equity, and respect for all stakeholders involved.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how hype sustains and distorts the psychedelic science movement. I examine how scientific claims in the field function as promissory capital. I emphasize the need for critical engagements with psychedelic science to foster reflexivity in the field and improve theory development.
Paper long abstract:
Conceiving of psychedelic science as a scientific-intellectual movement, this paper explores how hype functions to sustain the movement and advance its aims. Drawing on in-depth interviews with psychedelic researchers from across the United States, participant observation in psychedelic webinars and conferences, and review of scientific literature on psychedelics, I examine how scientific claims about psychedelics function as promissory capital. For instance, I trace how scientific techniques and scientists’ communications have variously contributed to the reframing of psychedelics as neurotechnologies capable of leveraging neuroplasticity to instigate transformative change in individual users. I also highlight examples wherein psychedelics’ transformative potential is tied to inflated or incomplete understandings of their effects. I specifically draw attention to scientific claims that both obscure the complex and biocultural nature of psychedelic effects and contribute to hype through reductionist, determinist, and idealist accounts of psychedelics potential to transform individuals and society. Finally, I describe how such claims can stimulate hype and help attract resources to support the field.
Following this analysis, I interrogate the role STS scholarship has to play in mitigating the effects of hype associated with psychedelic science. I look to critical neuroscience, neuroethics, critical realist approaches to mental health, and biocultural understandings of the brain to draw lessons about how STS can improve research and contribute to reflexivity in the field. Through this lens, I suggest that STS scholarship can also improve theory development in psychedelic research and help ensure ethical integration of psychedelics in society.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on ethnographic research, I explore how hype manifests in social interactions through scientific discourse. What can we learn from our interlocutors' care for psychedelic science? How can we care for them as they seek healing or transformation while remaining critical?
Paper long abstract:
This paper draws on ethnographic research in a recreational psychedelic economy in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Within exchange interactions and in interviews with participants, individuals often mobilize scientific ways of knowing and draw on findings from psychedelic science. These individuals care deeply for psychedelic science and its findings, for themselves, for their communities, and at times for the entire world. This care is both driven by and contributes to the hype about psychedelics. However, their hope for the promise of psychedelics is not divorced from reality but grounded in it. In tracking this grounding through social interactions, I pursue two primary questions: What can we learn from our interlocutors' care for psychedelic science? How can we care for them as they seek healing or transformation while remaining critical?
Paper short abstract:
STS should not shy away from the hype but take responsibility for affirming the transformative potential of psychedelic research. STS theories are perfectly suited to this end since their ontological, epistemological, ethical and political assumptions perfectly synergize with psychedelic experience.
Paper long abstract:
An STS perspective on the “psychedelic hype” can and should do more than simply describe its effects or deflate it – it must also mobilize it as an opportunity to do and view science differently. Building on a previous argument about turning the psychedelic hype into a stronger consideration of “context and care” in and out of scientific research, I will highlight the ontological, epistemological, ethical, and political twists that STS frameworks such as actor-network theory and feminist situated knowledges allow us to do on and with psychedelic science. Ontologically, such frameworks help us make sense of and legitimize the posthuman agency of psychedelic “contexts” – i.e. it is the “cosmic play” of “drug assemblages” and their many participants that we come to know through psychedelics and STS. Epistemologically, this knowledge comes not from detachment but situated involvement – the “strong objectivity” of which undoes “psychonaut’s dilemma” regarding personal use of the drugs by researchers; produces better results through the ethical care of trial participants; and is critical and ambitious when interpreting the lack of diversity in psychedelic trials (e.g. might the predominantly white demographic in psychedelic hype tell us something about “whiteness”?). Finally, STS should help us extend our care for ethical considerations to political ones by exploring the performative consequences our own research frameworks on what psychedelics become (e.g. neuroscience and neoliberalism). In all, STS should take responsibility for shaping the psychedelic hype to transformative ends rather than merely dismiss it as a fetishization of business as usual.