In my doctoral research, I asked: how do labor, class, and race interact to shape equity and sustainability in renewable fuels production? To answer this question, I conducted an extended case study of the sugar-ethanol industry in Brazil, where mills recently faced strong pressure to improve working and environmental conditions. My dissertation uses data from in-depth interviews with industry elites, such as mill owners and managers, and ethnographic observations of harvesting activities at mills. Rather than focus on grassroots actors, as is common in studies of inequality and environment, I study the white elites who benefit from unequal relations. By viewing power and inequality from above, I gleaned unique insight on how elites’ attitudes toward race, labor, and class collided with state efforts to promote equitable and sustainable practices on mills.
Three findings emerge. First, evidence illustrates that policies to improve labor conditions for seasonal farmworkers, such as cane-cutters, spurred owners and managers to mechanize harvesting activities. As I explain in a recent article in Environmental Sociology, a secondary effect of mechanization is the elimination of pre-harvest field burning, a labor-saving practice that generates CO2 emissions and atmospheric pollution. Second, I find that the ethanol boom triggered a race among cane elites to buy farmland and build new mills. In this scramble, elites sought to preserve power and advantage, as well as expand dynastic privilege and status for future heirs. Third, evidence shows that environmental racism can explain the persistence of straw burning on mills in northeast Brazil, where legacies of slavery and sharecropping continue to racialize attitudes, practices, and policies related to rural work and toxic exposure.
In my next project, I will address new questions around the regulation of race and environment that my dissertation raised. While my previous research focused on white cane elites, the next project will examine two other stakeholder groups: rural workers and state regulatory inspectors. For the former, who are primarily black and mixed-race, I will investigate how they construct racial identity and perceive exposure to environmental racism in sugarcane work. For the latter, I will examine how they balance the economic interests of industry with the well-being of communities and rural workers, as well as how they construct and operationalize notions of fairness and justice in their regulatory activities.This project will contribute to sociological research by pinpointing the mechanisms in which state and society co-construct racial and environmental relations.
Three findings emerge. First, evidence illustrates that policies to improve labor conditions for seasonal farmworkers, such as cane-cutters, spurred owners and managers to mechanize harvesting activities. As I explain in a recent article in Environmental Sociology, a secondary effect of mechanization is the elimination of pre-harvest field burning, a labor-saving practice that generates CO2 emissions and atmospheric pollution. Second, I find that the ethanol boom triggered a race among cane elites to buy farmland and build new mills. In this scramble, elites sought to preserve power and advantage, as well as expand dynastic privilege and status for future heirs. Third, evidence shows that environmental racism can explain the persistence of straw burning on mills in northeast Brazil, where legacies of slavery and sharecropping continue to racialize attitudes, practices, and policies related to rural work and toxic exposure.
In my next project, I will address new questions around the regulation of race and environment that my dissertation raised. While my previous research focused on white cane elites, the next project will examine two other stakeholder groups: rural workers and state regulatory inspectors. For the former, who are primarily black and mixed-race, I will investigate how they construct racial identity and perceive exposure to environmental racism in sugarcane work. For the latter, I will examine how they balance the economic interests of industry with the well-being of communities and rural workers, as well as how they construct and operationalize notions of fairness and justice in their regulatory activities.This project will contribute to sociological research by pinpointing the mechanisms in which state and society co-construct racial and environmental relations.
Sugarcane farmland in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil
Sugarcane farmland in the state of Alagoas, Brazil
A small farmer delivering harvested cane to a sugar-ethanol mill in the state of São Paulo, Brazil
