I examine how race and racism shape the formation of environmental practices and policies in multi-racial societies, such as Brazil and the U.S. In my current project, I ask: how do class and race interact to shape practices on worksites that are racially stratified and environmentally hazardous? To answer this question, I conducted an extended case study of the Brazilian sugar-ethanol industry, where mills recently faced pressure to improve labor and environmental standards. Based on in-depth interviews with state labor regulators, rural unions, and non-white rural workers, I study racial inequalities through the prism of health and safety standards related to cane-cutting, field burning, and agrotoxin usage.

​This work builds on dissertation research that focuses on the white elites who dominate the Brazilian sugar-ethanol industry. Based on interviews with mill owners and managers, I studied how state efforts to regulate labor and environmental activities interacted with the ruling ideologies of industry elites. By studying power and inequality from above, I gleaned unique insight on white elite attitudes toward race, labor, and nature. This dissertation shows how promoting equity and sustainability requires conferring new power and privileges to previously marginalized groups and withstanding counter-responses from incumbent actors who seek to retain long-held advantages related to race and class.

​My research on the US engages the intersection of race, environment, and the state. In this conceptual work, I seek to advance our frameworks for studying how race and racism serve as building blocks for environmental policy formation. My two papers from this research area bring race to bear on the political economy of environmental change, where debates have largely focused on class, labor, and markets. In doing so, I argue that race is not a peripheral feature of the political economy, but rather is central to the politics that underpin policy formation.