THE FETISHIZATION OF NATURE AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF NATURAL STONES IN THE CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT

Abstract

This article analyzes the transformation of ornamental stones into highly valued and fetishized commodities in the contemporary context, whose prices increasingly diverge from value as classically determined by the production process, that is, by the value–labor relation. It is argued that this process of valorization is associated, on the one hand, with the legal instrumentalization of landed property and mining rights and, on the other, with the incorporation of symbolic elements linked to natural characteristics and historically constructed cultural values. In recent decades, the intensification of planetary-scale urbanization and the industrial conversion of virtually all elements of nature into commodities have progressively distanced everyday life from the natural environment. Paradoxically, this distancing has produced a growing symbolic valorization of nature, as noted by Lefebvre. Commodity fetishism, however, conceals the processes of environmental destruction inherent in the exploitation of ornamental stones, which result from geological processes unfolding over millions of years. Drawing on critical theory, the article reveals a central contradiction in the sector’s logic of accumulation: the exaltation of the commodity’s symbolic and natural attributes – frequently mobilized to promote rent-seeking practices – occurs simultaneously with its removal from the natural environment. The Brazilian ornamental stone industry is adopted as the spatial analytical framework.