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The Politics of Ecstatic Research
or the impact on the community when it did occur. It also reveals the
outcome when researchers don’t account for local beliefs and ways
of organizing community experience. In this case, the indigenous psy-
chologist thoughtfully offered an encapsulated version of a perspective
different from that held within mainstream psychology. The unspoken
implications of her comments were that safety for the community lay
in understanding the roots of depression and suicide and that danger
lay in approaching these from the wrong angle.
Learning to anticipate and avoid danger
Goulet ( 1998 ) has observed that indigenous people impart to research-
ers only what they believe them to be able to understand (although the
first case I mentioned suggests the cultural adviser missed or was mis-
led into missing the mark). It’s interesting to consider carefully what
this idea might mean, “what one can understand”: it suggests that as
researchers grow in their understanding of the others’ cosmology, their
ability to comprehend the immediate world, the world of daily expe-
rience, grows accordingly. As comprehension grows, one can engage
the spiritual world without creating manifest danger to oneself and
anyone else. The issue of danger is a significant one; and I recall the
case of an archaeologist who refused to dab on ochre while excavat-
ing a sensitive burial site, despite the request of the community offi-
cials and elders. The ochre is part of a local system of spiritual practice
and imparts protection to those wearing it. These tribal people were
not particularly worried about the archaeologist, but they were openly
worried about the possibility of people being bothered by spirits that
might be agitated by the excavation. In particular, inadequately pre-
pared or weakened humans, the elders, the feeble, the sick, and chil-
dren, were vulnerable to spirits that might take their souls.
This example reveals that it is barely enough for researchers to sim-
ply set aside their own systems of belief; rather, one must anticipate
danger and difficulty to live gracefully with indigenous people in their
environment, just as the indigenous peoples themselves must. In fact,
it has been observed that a defining characteristic of adulthood is the
ability to anticipate danger and avoid it. This idea shows up in Basso’s
