What if there is a cure somewhere in the jungle? Seeking and plant medicine becomings by Natasha-Kim Ferenczi M.A. (Anthropology), Concordia University, 2005 B.A. (Hons.), Concordia University, 2002 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences © Natasha-Kim Ferenczi 2018 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Fall 2018 Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation. Approval Name: Natasha-Kim Ferenczi Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Title: What if there is a cure somewhere in the jungle? Seeking and plant medicine becomings Examining Committee: Chair: Pamela Stern Assistant Professor Marianne Ignace Senior Supervisor Professor Dara Culhane Co-Supervisor Professor Ian Tietjen Internal Examiner Assistant Professor Faculty of Health Sciences Leslie Main Johnson External Examiner Professor Department of Anthropology Athabasca University Date Defended/Approved: December 10, 2018 ii Ethics Statement iii Abstract This thesis is a critical ethnographic exploration of meanings emerging at the plant- health nexus and the in-between spaces when seekers and healers meet in efforts to heal across epistemological borderlands. In both British Columbia, Canada and Talamanca, Costa Rica I investigated the motivations underpinning seeking trajectories structured around plant medicine and the experiences and critical reflections on these encounters made by healers and people who work with plant medicines. In this dissertation, I expose the contested space around understandings of efficacy and highlight the epistemological politics emphasized by participants who seek to de-center plants in popular therapeutic imaginaries, to bring out these tensions and the way they interpolate ideas about sustainability and traditional knowledge conservation. Field research was carried out in 2013 during a period of one year with the support of an SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship. Over fifty participants who work with plant medicines were consulted for this research, including healers, apprentices, herbalists, ethnobotanists, forestry specialists, and anthropologists of varying backgrounds- Afro-Caribbean, Bribri, Cabécar, Tican, American, Canadian, Hawaiian, and Anishinaabe. Their concerns around the sustainability of traditional healing practices are juxtaposed to the various ways plant medicinal identities are being constituted and instrumentalized, as subjective beings, actants, causal agents, material objects, alkaloids, teachers, relatives, or parts of “nature on the move” (Igoe, 2014). I discuss the way the burgeoning popularity of plant medicine today in some ways challenges the mainstream biomedical paradigm for thinking about medicine, as plants are re-animated with identities adopted from their cultural origins, exemplified with the popularity of ayahuasca in British Columbia. However, there is a proviso in that emerging anthropomorphisms in some instances repeat colonizing gestures even as they reflect agency and counter-hegemonic challenges, by upholding dualisms in understandings of efficacy that separate plants and healing practices from their local contexts. I argue the impactful ways thinking about plant medicine as becoming, as a verb rather than a noun, can support the sustainability of traditional healing practices and economic opportunities for the cottage industry production of plant medicine by de-centering plants in constructions of medicine. iv Keywords: Seeker; healer; plant medicine; knowledge politics; epistemological borderlands; traditional knowledge conservation v Dedication For my mother Josée (Zeffi) Ferenczi vi Acknowledgements This thesis could not have been completed without the support and participation of many wonderful people too numerous to name individually here. Thank you to all participants in this research in Costa Rica, British Columbia and Kona, Hawai’i, for sharing your stories, reflections, and insights. Your contributions have shaped this thesis in important ways. I am grateful to have met you and appreciate being welcomed into your homes and gardens. Your warmth and hospitality are forever remembered and treasured. I would like to express deep thanks to my thesis committee, Dr. Marianne Ignace, Dr. Dara Culhane as well as to Dr. Stacy Pigg for your wisdom and impeccable practices that leave me inspired and invigorated to continue this work. Thank you to the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Simon Fraser University for your support and to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for a doctoral fellowship that helped me see this research through. I would like to also thank Dr. Kathleen Inglis, Kathryn White, and Dr. Julie LaPlante for insightful feedback on particular sections in this thesis, and to my family for precious words of encouragement. The words filling these pages could not have been written without the support of my husband, Sebastien Ouellette, who acted as cameraman, support network, and companion, as well as our daughter Billie and dog Calvin. Most of all, I want to thank my mother, Josée Gandol Ferenczi for being a continuous inspiration throughout this research and always helping me to see things differently and through multiple lenses. vii Table of Contents Approval ............................................................................................................................ ii Ethics Statement ............................................................................................................... iii Abstract ............................................................................................................................ iv Dedication ........................................................................................................................ vi Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... vii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ viii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... x List of Figures................................................................................................................... xi List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................... xii Glossary .......................................................................................................................... xiii Prologue .......................................................................................................................... xv Opening Image............................................................................................................... xvii Chapter 1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Reconfiguring people-plant relationships .............................................................. 16 1.2. Encounters around healing ................................................................................... 17 1.3. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 22 1.4. Notes ..................................................................................................................... 28 Chapter 2. Methodology as meshwork .................................................................... 30 2.1. Rain ....................................................................................................................... 30 2.2. Walking Methodology ............................................................................................ 36 2.3. Research in British Columbia ................................................................................ 41 2.4. Analyzing embodied experience ........................................................................... 48 2.5. Analyzing embodied experience ........................................................................... 55 2.6. Ethics and intellectual property ............................................................................. 59 2.7. “Did she smoke? ................................................................................................... 64 Chapter 3. Senses of place ....................................................................................... 67 3.1. Wa’apin man? ....................................................................................................... 68 3.2. Murder of a lemon ................................................................................................. 72 3.3. UsekLa awá and organized resistance to the United Fruit Company ................... 76 3.4. The rise of the banana .......................................................................................... 77 3.5. Early Afro-Caribbean settlers ................................................................................ 78 3.6. Trade and Reciprocity ........................................................................................... 79 3.7. Indigenous rights, Land struggles, and deforestation ........................................... 81 3.8. A tended landscape: Coconut walks ....................................................................