Attributing intrinsic, quasi-magical power to an object or concept — commodity fetishism (Marx) describes how social relations between people come to appear as relations between things; more loosely, treating a metric or technology as an end in itself rather than a means.
Fetishisation, in the sense that gives the term its analytical weight, comes from Marx’s account of the commodity, where relations between people take on the appearance of relations between things — value seems to be a property of the object rather than a form taken by social labour. That is a claim about how value appears under a particular mode of production, not a synonym for obsession. The word also has a psychoanalytic use, an older use in the anthropology of religion, and a loose critical use meaning excessive or misplaced fixation. These uses share an image rather than a theory. A reader meeting the word should establish which register is intended; the loose sense is now the most common.
Why this entry carries no source list. This lexicon cites an official primary source wherever one exists. For a concept used across several traditions at once, no such source exists: there is no body with authority over it, and a signed academic reference — the tier this lexicon would otherwise reach for — has no entry under this headword. Citing one school’s formulation would present a position as a definition. So the entry names the senses in play and the distinction between them, which is the part a reader can actually use.