Tending a Vibrant World

Indigenous gift logic offers an alternative to the commercial extraction of sacred plant medicines in the global capitalist economy. Unlike barter or monetary systems, gift economies involve giving without expectation of future reward, underpinning a relational epistemology that treats plants and fungi as beings with agency rather than commodities. The article suggests reorienting the psychedelic resurgence toward relational ontologies indexed to place and informed by Indigenous gift logic.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract Indigenous people have been stewards of sacred plant medicines for millennia. Many of these sacred medicines—such as tobacco, cedar, sage, sweetgrass, and more recently the ayahuasca admixture and psilocybin-containing fungi—have been commercialized via their entry into the global capitalist economy. In this article, we offer readers an introduction to Indigenous gift logic as an alternative to the necropolitics of colonial extraction associated with the contemporary psychedelic resurgence. Unlike barter or monetary-based economic systems, gift economies are based on the notion of gift giving without a tacit agreement for future reward. The logic of the gift goes beyond this accessible definition in that it underpins an episteme of relationality that is difficult (if not impossible) to nurture when our plant and fungal relations are treated as things or commodities, rather than lives with their own habits, dispositions, and agency. We offer suggestions for reorienting the psychedelic resurgence to create space for relational ontologies to flourish, indexed to place, and informed by Indigenous gift logic.