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?
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?