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Drugged Subjectivity, Intoxicating Alterity
Author(s) -
Pollock Donald
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
anthropology of consciousness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1556-3537
pISSN - 1053-4202
DOI - 10.1111/anoc.12050
Subject(s) - appropriation , consciousness , subjectivity , alterity , identity (music) , indigenous , semiotics , environmental ethics , aesthetics , ethnology , sociology , anthropology , history , philosophy , ecology , epistemology , biology
This article explores the use of intoxicants by a community of Kulina Indians in western Brazil. I suggest that Kulina intoxication through alcohol, tobacco, and ayahuasca is best understood as a form of semiotic appropriation of the identity of cosmological “others,” including animal spirits, creator beings, other Indian groups, and Brazilians. I consider how embodying practices, such as song and physical movement, enhance the experience of being an “alter,” facilitated by the alterations in consciousness produced by intoxicants.