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Mahogany Intertwined: Enviromateriality Between Mexico, Fiji, And The Gibson Les Paul, Jose E. Martinez-Reyes

Jose E. Martinez-Reyes

This article builds a theory of enviromateriality through a global ethnography that engages both the material culture and materiality of a tree species, Honduran mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), and the global political ecology of forest conservation. The author seeks to understand what Adorno calls the ‘constellation’ between people and mahogany by tracing human–nature relations through the global commodity chain focusing on one particular artefact, the Gibson Les Paul, an iconic solid wood electric guitar made primarily of mahogany grown in Mexico and Fiji. Enviromateriality considers three phases in which to examine the material and materiality in a variety of processes that …