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in fact six distinct but inter-related moments in the commodifi cation of nature,
including not only abstraction, but also privatisation, alienability, individuation,
valuation, and displacement.
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Picking up on some of these points, Bakker (2005)
argues for careful distinctions between privatisation, commercialisation and com-
modifi cation. These are useful insights provided that they not be seen wholly as
separate categories of social action. Privatisation schemes, for instance, are fre-
quently as integral to commodifi cation and the development of far-fl ung exchange
as are processes of representation and abstraction, and these schemes are often sites
of contradictory imperatives and intense contestation and social struggle (Mansfi eld,
2004b; 2007). Moreover, privatisation struggles are pivotal moments tied (directly
or indirectly) to processes of accumulation by dispossession (Harvey, 2003; Glass-
man, 2006) and in this respect are not formally distinct but relational moments in
the commodifi cation of nature (Prudham, 2007a).
Commodity Fetishism, Labels and Alternative
Commodity Circuits
One of the most commonly noted features of commodities in the contemporary
world is that it is by no means obvious even to curious consumers where commodi-
ties originate and what kinds of social and environmental inputs went into their
production and circulation. From a normative and ethical standpoint, this means
that it is not obvious what kinds of activities are being supported and reproduced
via the purchase of commodities. As David Harvey (1990, p. 423) put it '[t]he grapes
that sit on supermarket shelves are mute; we cannot see the fi ngerprints of exploita-
tion upon them or tell immediately what part of the world they are from'. Complex
relations of transformation, circulation and exchange sever '. . . materially and sym-
bolically the connection between producing exchange and use values...masking
the qualitative social and environmental relations of production' (Kaika and Swynge-
douw, 2000, p. 123). This phenomenon, and specifi cally, the tendency to reify com-
modities as things in and of themselves (with a concomitant tendency for commodities
to take on values somewhat independent of their production and circulation) was
termed the 'fetishism' of the commodity by Marx (1977, p. 165).
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This idea of the commodity fetish remains a quite powerful notion for scholars
and activists interested in commodifi cation processes. At a basic level, and despite
different takes on the idea of fetishism per se, a desire to understand the complex
trajectories and valences of commodities has animated a rich literature and social
activism concerning the 'lives' of commodities, including their geographies, moti-
vated in part by a sense that the spatio-temporal displacements of commodity pro-
visioning - whether conceptualised in terms of chains, networks, or circuits - are
becoming more complex in a globalising world (Winson, 1993; Gereffi and Korze-
niewicz, 1994; Hartwick, 1998; Leslie and Reimer, 1999; Robbins, 1999). Much
of this work seeks not only to document and understand, but also to transform
relations of exploitation in realms of production (e.g., Harvey, 1990; Hartwick,
1998; Hartwick, 2000; Mutersbaugh, 2004). In this sense, commodity chain and
commodity circuit analyses offer strong complementarities with life-cycle assessment
methodologies developed in the physical and engineering sciences, seeking to docu-
ment the full range of relations and practices that propel commodities, including
ecological inputs and lifetime environmental impacts from production, circulation,
and disposal.
