A Different Medicine: Postcolonial Healing In The Native American Church (Oxford Ritual Studies)

\* The work of an author with Western and indigneous clinical experience \* Based on unusual ethnographic field research Drawing on two years of ethnographic field research among the Navajos, this book explores a controversial Native American ritual and healthcare practice: ceremonial consumption of the psychedelic Peyote cactus in the context of an indigenous postcolonial healing movement called the Native American Church (NAC), which arose in the 19th century in response to the creation of the reservations system and increasing societal ills, including alcoholism. The movement is the locus of cultural conflict with a long history in North America, and stirs very strong and often opposed emotions and moral interpretations. Joseph Calabrese describes the Peyote Ceremony as it is used in family contexts and federally funded clinical programs for Native American patients. He uses an interdisciplinary methodology that he calls clinical ethnography: an approach to research that involves clinically informed and self-reflective immersion in local worlds of suffering, healing, and normality. Calabrese combined immersive fieldwork among NAC members in their communities with a year of clinical work at a Navajo-run treatment program for adolescents with severe substance abuse and associated mental health problems. There he had the unique opportunity to provide conventional therapeutic intervention alongside Native American therapists who were treating the very problems that the NAC often addresses through ritual. Calabrese argues that if people respond better to clinical interventions that are relevant to their society's unique cultural adaptations and ideologies (as seems to be the case with the NAC), then preventing ethnic minorities from accessing traditional ritual forms of healing may actually constitute a human rights violation. Drawing on two years of ethnographic field research among the Navajos, this book explores a controversial Native American ritual and healthcare practice: ceremonial consumption of the psychedelic Peyote cactus in the context of an indigenous postcolonial healing movement called the Native American Church (NAC). The NAC arose in the nineteenth century in response to the creation of the reservation system and increasing societal ills, including alcoholism. The movement is the locus of a cultural conflict with a long history in North America and stirs very strong and often opposed emotions and moral interpretations. Joseph D. Calabrese describes the Peyote Ceremony as it is used in family contexts and federally funded clinical programs for Native American patients. He uses an interdisciplinary methodology that he calls clinical ethnography: an approach to research that involves clinically informed and self-reflective immersion in local worlds of suffering, healing, and normality. Calabrese combined immersive fieldwork among NAC members in their communities with a year of clinical work at a Navajo-run treatment program for adolescents with severe substance abuse and associated mental health problems. There he had the unique opportunity to provide conventional therapeutic intervention alongside Native American therapists who were treating the very problems that the NAC addresses through ritual. Calabrese argues that if people respond better to clinical interventions that are relevant to their society's unique cultural adaptations and ideologies (as seems to be the case with the NAC), then preventing ethnic minorities from accessing traditional ritual forms of healing may actually constitute a human rights violation. In 'a Different Medicine', Joseph Calabrese Presents A Case Study That Challenges Many Deeply Ingrained Cultural Assumptions And Attempts To Mediate A Centuries-old Clash Of Cultural Paradigms. The Book Explores A Controversial Native American Ritual And Healthcare Practice: Ceremonial Consumption Of The Psychedelic Peyote Cactus In The Context Of A Postcolonial Healing Movement Called The Native American Church. Calabrese Argues Against The War On Drugs And The Supreme Court Decision That Jeopardized The Right Of Native Americans To Use This Medicine. He Urges Us To Recognize The Multiplicity Of The Normal And The Therapeutic. Pt. 1. Anthropological And Clinical Orientations. Introduction : Peyote, Cultural Paradigm Clash And The Multiplicity Of The Normal -- Expanding Our Conceptualization Of The Therapeutic : Toward A Suitable Theoretical Framework For The Study Of Cultural Psychiatries -- Clinical Ethnography : Clinically Informed Self-reflective Immersion In Local Worlds Of Suffering, Healing And Well-being -- Pt. 2. Cultural And Personal Healing In The Native American Church. The Unfolding Cultural Paradigm Clash : Ritual Peyote Use And The Struggle For Postcolonial Healing In North America -- Medicine And Spirit : The Dual Nature Of Peyote -- The Peyote Ceremony : Psychopharmacology, Ritual Process And Experiences Of Healing -- Kinship, Socialization And Ritual In Navajo Peyotist Families -- Postcolonial Hybridity And Ritual Bureaucracy In New Mexico : Participant Observation In A Navajo Peyotist Healer's Clinical Program -- Decolonizing Our Understandings Of The Normal And The Therapeutic. Joseph D. Calabrese. Includes Bibliographical References (p.[203]-219) And Index. Acknowledgments Preface: Hard to Swallow: The Challenge of Radical Cultural Differences PART 1. Anthropological and Clinical Orientations I Introduction: Peyote, Cultural Paradigm Clash, and the Multiplicity of the Normal II Expanding Our Conceptualization of the Therapeutic: Toward a Suitable Theoretical Framework for the Study of Cultural Psychiatries III Clinical Ethnography: Clinically-Informed Self-Reflective Immersion in Local Worlds of Suffering, Healing and Wellbeing PART 2. Cultural and Personal Healing in the Native American Church IV The Unfolding Cultural Paradigm Clash: Ritual Peyote Use and the Struggle for Postcolonial Healing in North America V Medicine and Spirit: The Dual Nature of Peyote VI The Peyote Ceremony: Psychopharmacology, Ritual Process, and Experiences of Healing VII Kinship, Socialization, and Ritual in Navajo Peyotist Families VIII Postcolonial Hybridity and Ritual Bureaucracy in New Mexico: Participant Observation in a Navajo Peyotist Healer's Clinical Program IX Decolonizing Our Understandings of the Normal and the Therapeutic References