Tuci as a Pharmacopolitical Event: New and Old Materialisms

Abstract

This article conceptualizes Tuci as a pharmacopolitical event rather than a fixed substance, shifting the question from “what is it?” to “what does it do and how does it organise worlds?” In dialogue with neo-material and genealogical approaches, we propose a relational ontology where bodies, objects, spaces, and affects co-produce the experience and its governance. Methodologically, we conducted a second-order reading of an ethnographic study in Santiago that combined micro-ethnographies in three circuits—electronic, urban, and sexualized use—75 interviews, and 30 field documents, with thematic analysis. We found two instituting mechanisms. (a) The kitchen operates as a vernacular laboratory: it composes, calibrates, and validates mixtures by trial and error and staggered tests, shifting the authority of the chemical index toward reproducible “truths of practice.” (b) The paraphernalia—with the “shovel” as somatechnology—miniaturizes the intake, translates variation into legible intervals—"shovel strokes"—shifts the dose from the bathroom to the dance floor, and enables a choreographic micro-governmentality—turns, pauses, water, and ventilation. Together, both assemblages institute an ethic of pulse and economies of trust that make instability governable. We argue that the compositional “spectrality” of Tuci is constitutive and that its governance emerges from ecologies of practice where the collective acts as a sensor and limit. We contribute to the field by refining the notion of the pharmacopolitical event, offering an analysis of assemblages and proposing a change of rationality for harm reduction policies: translating laboratory maps into situated compasses. Limitations: nonprobabilistic sample and concentration in Santiago.