Doctoral Dissertation Summary

---

More Than Peyote: Trauma, Healing, and the Politics of Indigenous Cultural Survival in the Age of Psychedelic Colonialism 

Read the full dissertation (Open Access on ProQuest): https://www.proquest.com/docview/3284363019

This dissertation has been published open access, meaning the author paid publication fees to ensure the research is accessible to community members and practitioners, not only scholars with institutional access to academic repositories. This decision reflects a commitment to Indigenous research principles, including accountability, responsibility, and reciprocity.

This page provides a scholarly summary of the dissertation for readers seeking an overview of its scope, methods, findings, and contributions.

On this page

Abstract · Positionality · Historical Context · Methodology · Key Findings · Conclusions & Implications · Citation

This dissertation examines the intersection of peyote religion, historical trauma, and the emergent psychedelic movement through a critical Indigenous lens. Centering peyote as both a sacred medicine and a symbolic flashpoint, the study analyzes how contemporary psychedelic policy, practice, and commercialization can perpetuate settler-colonial paradigms and threaten Indigenous cultural survival.

While dominant narratives frequently frame psychedelics as tools for healing, this research demonstrates how such framings often obscure deeper histories of dispossession, cultural appropriation, and epistemic violence. Using a mixed-methods approach—including 50 anonymous survey responses, 13 qualitative interviews, and a six-person focus group—this study amplifies the perspectives of Tribal citizens across the United States.

The findings indicate that healing, for many participants, is not rooted primarily in psychedelic substances themselves, but in the reclamation of land-based traditions, kinship systems, and Indigenous ways of being. Participants further described how contemporary psychedelic discourse can reactivate historical trauma rather than resolve it. Significant concerns emerged regarding peyote access, ecological degradation, legal frameworks such as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), and the commodification of sacred medicines through psychedelic capitalism.

The dissertation demonstrates that peyote healing is inherently political, embedded in struggles over land, law, and cultural recognition. It identifies the need for legal reform, Indigenous-led conservation efforts, and international protections for sacred knowledge. By re-centering Indigenous perspectives, this research challenges dominant psychedelic discourses and asserts that genuine healing cannot occur without justice, cultural revitalization, and the dismantling of colonial structures that continue to shape the psychedelic landscape.

This dissertation begins with positionality. It situates the research within the author’s lived experience as a Native American woman, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) Nation, and a generational survivor of Indian boarding schools. It further contextualizes the author’s professional work in truth-telling, justice, and healing at the federal level in the United States, and explains what led to the exploration of peyote as a pathway toward personal and spiritual healing.

Chapter Summary
This research emerges from lived experience and scholarly inquiry at the intersection of Native American spirituality, policy, and healing. It was undertaken in response to growing tensions between Tribal and Indigenous communities and the contemporary psychedelic movement, particularly in relation to peyote, sacred medicines, and religious freedom. Grounded in accountability to Indigenous communities, the study documents perspectives that are frequently marginalized or misrepresented within psychedelic research and policy discourse.

Chapter 2 situates the study within a broader historical arc of U.S. federal Indian policy, from forced assimilation and spiritual prohibition during the boarding school era to the American Indian Rights movement and legislation such as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA). The literature review establishes the historical and legal conditions shaping both the research design and the interpretation of its findings.

This chapter also documents the contemporary psychedelic movement, including legislative efforts and scientific research, as a backdrop against which current struggles for peyote survival and conservation are unfolding. In doing so, it establishes the historical continuity connecting past forms of spiritual suppression to present-day policy debates.

Chapter Summary
This chapter situates Indigenous healing traditions within a broader history of colonial violence, including forced assimilation, criminalization of Indigenous spirituality, and the Indian boarding school system. It traces the legal and political history of peyote regulation and AIRFA, highlighting how Indigenous religious practices have been simultaneously suppressed and selectively protected. This context is essential for understanding why contemporary psychedelic reform efforts are often experienced by Indigenous communities as retraumatizing rather than liberatory.

This study employs Indigenous research methodologies grounded in relational accountability, respect, and responsibility. In keeping with Indigenous research ethics, the research was conducted with attention to transparency and ethical engagement beyond institutional compliance alone. Prior to and during the research process, the author engaged in community outreach to inform relevant stakeholders of the study and its scope, and to invite dialogue where appropriate. Participation decisions remained voluntary and confidential.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocols were followed, and all participants provided voluntary informed consent. The researcher completed CITI Human Research and Social and Behavioral Research training and certification. Participant identities were protected through confidentiality and anonymity, and additional safeguards were implemented to prioritize community safety.

Data collection methods included anonymous surveys, semi-structured interviews, a facilitated focus group, and contextual observation of publicly accessible materials related to American Indian religious freedom and policy. Research activities were conducted across multiple states.

Funding for research activities included University of Alaska Fairbanks Troth Yeddha’ Research Assistantship stipends and personal funds drawn from the author’s own retirement savings. Tuition and living expenses throughout the degree program were supported by the American Indian College Fund, the Eloise Cobell Scholarship, the Tiwahe Foundation, personal savings, and student loans.

Research Questions

1. What are Tribal citizens focused on for health and well-being, and what traditional and non-traditional practices do they engage in?
2. What concerns do Tribal citizens have regarding AIRFA and peyote protection?
3. What is the relationship between peyote practitioners and the Native American Church?
4. What concerns exist regarding peyote conservation amid the psychedelic movement?
5. What do Tribal citizens know about the psychedelic movement, and how do they view legalization and decriminalization efforts?

Chapter 4 presents findings drawn from survey data, interviews, and focus group discussions. Rather than producing a single unified position, the data reflect complex, sometimes paradoxical perspectives shaped by lived experience, historical trauma, ecological scarcity, and legal ambiguity.

Terminology and Scope of Identity

Throughout this research, terminology is used intentionally. The term American Indian is employed when discussing U.S. federal legislation, policy frameworks, and legal protections, including AIRFA, reflecting the language of law and governance structures that shape recognition and access.

The term Indigenous is used more broadly to refer to Indigenous peoples globally, including Tribal citizens, Native Americans, and transnational Indigenous migrants whose identities, spiritual practices, and relationships to medicine extend beyond U.S. federal definitions. This distinction is essential for understanding both the scope of the findings and the limitations of existing policy frameworks.

These distinctions inform how the findings are interpreted across legal, cultural, and transnational contexts.

Overview of Findings

Following are the major thematic findings identified through grounded theory analysis.
 

Healing, Trauma, and Cultural Survival

Participants consistently described healing as inseparable from historical trauma, cultural loss, and intergenerational survival. Healing was understood as collective and relational—rooted in ceremony, land, kinship, and spiritual responsibility—rather than individual or clinical. For many, contemporary psychedelic discourse reactivated unresolved grief tied to boarding schools, religious suppression, and criminalization.

AIRFA and Religious Freedom

AIRFA was widely acknowledged as a hard-won legal protection, yet participants expressed concern that its promises remain only partially fulfilled. Many described tensions between tribal sovereignty, individual religious autonomy, and federal regulation, emphasizing that legal recognition alone does not ensure spiritual safety or cultural survival.

Peyote Conservation

Peyote conservation emerged as one of the most urgent and widely shared concerns. Participants cited declining availability, ecological degradation, disconnection from harvesting practices, and legal barriers to cultivation. Conservation was framed as a spiritual, cultural, and intergenerational responsibility grounded in seven-generation thinking.

Paradoxical Views on Psychedelic Policy and Mescaline

Participants expressed divergent and sometimes contradictory views regarding legalization, decriminalization, and synthetic mescaline. Some warned that legalizing mescaline could rapidly undermine Indigenous religious rights and access to peyote. Others articulated a pragmatic strategy: allowing non-Native access to synthetic mescaline as a means of conserving natural peyote for Tribal use. These perspectives reflect strategic reasoning shaped by scarcity, survival, and unequal power dynamics.

Diversity and Internal Complexity

The findings demonstrate that Tribal perspectives are not monolithic. Participants ranged from strict protectionist to cautiously inclusive positions, often shifting depending on context. Qualitative data revealed layered histories of resistance, adaptation, and ceremonial innovation not captured by simple policy categories.

Psychedelic Colonialism and Psychedelic Settlerism

This research introduces psychedelic colonialism as an analytic framework describing how psychedelic research, policy, and commercialization can reproduce colonial patterns of extraction, regulation, and control over Indigenous medicines and knowledge systems.

An emergent concept, psychedelic settlerism, describes a specific mode through which psychedelic colonialism operates—erasing, tokenizing, or selectively incorporating Indigenous knowledge while centering Western institutions and authorities. Participants identified these dynamics as continuations of epistemic and spiritual colonialism.

Chapter 5 synthesizes the findings and articulates their implications for psychedelic policy, research, ethics, and Indigenous cultural survival. Rather than offering prescriptive solutions, the conclusions emphasize structural accountability, relational responsibility, and Indigenous self-determination.

Indigenous Cultural Survival

The dissertation concludes that Tribal and Indigenous cultural survival must be central—not peripheral—to psychedelic research and policy. Sacred medicines are inseparable from Tribal and Indigenous governance, spiritual responsibilities, and intergenerational knowledge transmission. Approaches that isolate substances from their cultural and historical contexts risk reproducing harm.

Consultation Beyond Symbolism

The research demonstrates that meaningful consultation with Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities must be ongoing, adequately resourced, and sovereignty-based. Symbolic inclusion and extractive engagement were widely viewed as insufficient.

Protection of Indigenous Knowledge

The study identifies an urgent need for stronger protections of Indigenous intellectual, cultural, and spiritual property. Ethical frameworks must prioritize consent, benefit-sharing, and long-term cultural protection.

Beyond Extractive Research

The dissertation challenges extractive academic models and demonstrates the value of Indigenous methodologies grounded in reciprocity, accountability, and community benefit.

Reframing Healing and Ethics

Participants did not reject healing or science. Rather, they articulated a desire for respect, consent, and self-determination, and for recognition of Tribal and Indigenous peoples as living communities with authority over their spiritual traditions.

Implications

Taken together, the conclusions indicate the need for a reorientation of psychedelic movements toward Tribal and Indigenous sovereignty, historical accountability, and ecological responsibility. Without these foundations, efforts framed as healing risk reproducing forms of psychedelic colonialism that undermine Indigenous cultural survival.

McCleave, C. D. (2025). More Than Peyote: Trauma, Healing, and the Politics of Indigenous Cultural Survival in the Age of Psychedelic Colonialism (Doctoral dissertation, University of Alaska Fairbanks). ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (No. 3284363019).

Open-access version available at:
https://www.proquest.com/docview/3284363019