Paper short abstract:

This talk discusses competing medical constructions of – and engagements with – the new “drug” salvia, aka the plant Salvia divinorum. I show how diverse linguistic and other practices produce different valuations of salvia, with significant implications for it surrounding social communities.

Paper long abstract:

In this talk, I discuss competing constructions of medicinal knowledge about Salvia divinorum, one of the world's newest "drugs." This research is part of a larger book project examining how linguistic and material practices jointly shape the emerging global trade in salvia, a hallucinogenic variety of mint. Mexico's indigenous Mazatec people have used salvia for centuries in religious curing rituals; shamanic knowledge of the plant thus stems from long traditions of local use, but has also been shaped by the recent rise in interest among psychedelic-seeking tourists and an accompanying recreational drug market in the plant. At the same time, salvia is the site of active biomedical research: salvia's active compound binds to a different neuroreceptor than do most hallucinogens, making it attractive to pharmaceutical researchers interested in exploiting the compound's chemical pathways to treat such maladies as chronic pain, schizophrenia, and opiate addiction. I examine how these two communities of practice - Mazatec shamans and their clients in Mexico, biomedical researchers and their study participants in the U.S - differentially saturate the plant with meaning through diverse medical and linguistic practices. I conclude by suggesting that notwithstanding the disciplinary barriers to such a methodology, attending jointly to medical and linguistic practices offers new insights into this and related cases where global trade involves moving goods across not only international boundaries but also across borders marked by ethnic differences, power discrepancies, and competing medicinal epistemologies anchored in divergent matrixes of linguistic practice.