Matsutake mushroom and Tibetans: polyphonic place in global-local interactions

Globalisation is a powerful socio-cultural force reshaping places, yet its contemporary and context-specific manifestations in economically underdeveloped and remote rural regions warrant closer attention. Existing research largely agrees that globalisation has led to resource extraction, labour exploitation, and displacement, rendering these places vulnerable and passive. This paper engages with the indigenous turn in cultural geography to critically reassess the socio-cultural transformation of places under globalisation. Through an examination of global-local interactions in the production and consumption of Matsutake mushrooms in Shangri-La, China, this paper highlights the agency of Tibetans within these processes. This paper introduces the concept of polyphonic place, proposing it as a fourth theoretical type that complements the prevailing three academic consensuses on global-local interactions: strong globalisation, strong localisation, and the hybridisation of global and local elements. This new type enriches our understanding of the unexpected and unstable aspects of global interactions. It presents a detailed analysis of the recent developments, including e-commerce trade, in the Matsutake mushroom industry in China’s Shangri-La region, while also positioning its findings in relation to and as a response to the classic anthropological research on Matsutake mushrooms.