UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Scentscapes: Understandings of Nature, Consumption, and Commodification through Agarwood and Olfaction Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0df4f57t Author Le, Tuyen Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Scentscapes: Understandings of Nature, Consumption, and Commodification through Agarwood and Olfaction A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Geography by Tuyen Bich Le 2018 © Copyright by Tuyen Bich Le 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Scentscapes: Understandings of Nature, Consumption, and Commodification through Agarwood and Olfaction by Tuyen Bich Le Doctor of Philosophy in Geography University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Lieba Bernice Faier, Chair This dissertation explores the olfactory economies of agarwood, a high-value non-timber forest product prized for its unique fragrance and used in incense, perfumes, and traditional medicine. It is primarily derived from a genus of trees called Aquilaria, which is native to Southeast Asia and is traded globally. Aquilaria species are classified as vulnerable or endangered and are subject to regulations under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This project demonstrates how varied understandings of nature, consumption practices, and consumer preferences can create irregularities in a globalized production network. In ii contrast to scholarship on commodity networks that detail how trade and consumption patterns are formed, and how people and places become systematically enrolled into structured networks of trade and production, the production of agarwood shows how culturally and geographically specific meanings and preferences create a commodity network that is inconsistent, characterized as diffuse, disarticulated, flexible, and often obscured.
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