Racial Capitalism and the Environment

• In Event: 41006 - Racial Capitalism and the Environment

Abstract

The topic of racial capitalism is of growing interest to environmental sociologists (McGee and Greiner 2020; Murphy 2021) and the discipline of sociology more generally (Bhattacharyya 2018; Go 2021). This paper, which is a chapter in the forthcoming book Environmental Sociology Now (University of California Press), builds on this burgeoning research area by examining the relationship between racial capitalism and the environment. I describe the utility of the racial capitalism approach for studying problems and debates that have long been important in the environmental sociology canon, ranging from the global political economy to individual actions. I selectively draw from foundational racial capitalism texts and other environmental sociology research. This paper focuses on the relationship between racial capitalism and the environment at three scales. First, at the macro-level, I draw from Rodney (1981) to discuss how racial structures and ideologies shape capitalist development and environmental transformation. Second, at the meso-level, I extend insights from Roediger and Esch (2013) and Harrison (2019) to examine how organizations and institutions are vital for sustaining the relationship between racial capitalism and the environment. Lastly, at the micro-level, this chapter draws from Kim (2021) and Carrillo (2021) to analyze how interpersonal and individual dynamics shape environmental injustice in racial capitalism. I conclude by discussing how advancing the study of racial capitalism and the environment necessitates not only using approaches within and beyond sociology, but also attention to the development of theory and praxis oriented around total liberation. For Gilmore (2022), racial capitalism requires building spaces based on curtailed freedom, stolen labor, and depleted ecosystems, all of which structure the unequal accumulation of value. In contrast, she calls for the need for alternative forms of “place-making,” whereby people build spaces and communities that prioritize human freedom and autonomy that exist in tandem with vibrant ecosystems.

Author

• Ian Robert Carrillo, University of Oklahoma