To know, to classify, and to regulate: Anthropology and drugs

Abstract

This article introduces the special issue “Drugs and Anthropology”, bringing together research that approaches drugs through their social, political, cultural, and historical dimensions. Rather than treating substances as given objects, the contributions examine the processes of classification, regulation, criminalization, care, and the production of rights that develop around them. Drawing on different ethnographic contexts, the articles discuss the formation of the anthropology of drugs in Brazil, disputes surrounding cannabis and ayahuasca, institutional practices of care, and the circulation of psychedelic knowledge and practices between Brazil and Mexico. Taken together, they show how different substances, practices, and subjects are continuously defined, legitimized, and regulated, as well as the role of anthropological knowledge itself in these processes.