Current Sociology

Please welcome our Sociologist of the Month for March 2021, Ian Carrillo (Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Oklahoma). His article for Current Sociology, The racial fix and environmental state formation, is Free Access this month.

Ian Carrillo

Could you please tell us about yourself? How did you come to your field of study?

I. Carrillo: In college I studied Latin American history, and was really curious about the development of democracy and the durability of authoritarian institutions and attitudes. Understanding the persistence of inequality through a sociological lens, particularly theories like dependency and world-systems, was very powerful. These frameworks often highlighted Brazilian sugarcane as an emblematic case, which contributed to my interest in studying Brazil’s sugar-ethanol industry as a doctoral student. In this research, it became clear that race and environment overlapped in complex ways in sugar-ethanol work, with racialized labor processes intersecting with environmentally harmful activities. So, I began studying in more detail the relationship between racial ideologies and environmental practices.

As I pursued my research in Brazil, I also advanced my understanding of sociological research on race in the United States. The first area of focus was obviously research on environmental injustice and racism. But I also explored areas that could be described as non-environmental, including welfare, housing, policing, employment, and banking, among others. And I began using sociological theories of race and racism, like racial formation or white habitus, to think about environmental racism in the US and Brazil. An important issue for me was to use the larger body of sociological research on race to analyze environmental inequalities, even if the environmental connections were not immediately apparent. Through this trajectory, I developed two research programs around environment and race, with one focusing on the US and the other on Brazil.

What prompted you to research the area of your article, “The racial fix and environmental state formation”?

I. Carrillo: I had been thinking about how a racialized political economy affects environmental policymaking and policy implementation. A powerful event in my thought process was Trump’s victory, which highlighted the relationship between racism and anti-environmentalism. Yet, these twin forces have a long history in the US, so it was necessary to go much deeper into the US experience. I felt that the treadmill of production provided a powerful template upon which to theorize a racialized political economy. Scholarship on the treadmill of production had already discussed the importance of fixes, so there was space for me to develop the idea of race operating as a fix. In that way, I could argue that racism and white supremacy were fundamental barriers to environmental equity and sustainability.

What do you see as the key findings of your article?

I. Carrillo: One of the contributions is showing the overlap between racialized political economy and the treadmill of production. To be able to make these linkages, I drew from an extensive body of environmental and non-environmental scholarship in sociology and elsewhere. For example, the literature on welfare state formation was important for conceptualizing how racial ideology guides policy attitudes and policy outcomes which, in my view, paralleled trends in environmental policy formation. I obviously utilized a large body of research on environmental injustice and racism, but sociological research on segregation, nation-building, and democracy was also important for grounding environmental racism in the larger history of racist ideology in the US. And research from political scientists and psychologists on racial attitudes and political preferences were incredibly useful for making contemporary linkages on individual psychology and anti-environmental political behavior. So, while some of these literatures might not immediately speak to each other, hopefully this article’s argumentation and theory-building puts them in dialogue in a useful way to help us understand the implications of race and racism on environmental and climate problems.

What are the wider social implications of your research in the current social climate? How do you think things will change in the future?

I. Carrillo: Hopefully this article effectively communicates the relevance of systemic racism to environmental and climate issues. I wanted to show how, in the United States, racism and white supremacy have been extremely hostile to the formation of public goods, whether relating to the environment, climate, welfare, or other areas. I think that identifying, naming, and showing these linkages is an important first step toward addressing them.

It makes me hopeful to see that there is more energy now than ever before calling for anti-racist, pro-environment, and pro-climate policies. There are many scholars doing research that recognizes the reality of existing barriers while outlining promising pathways forward. The energy in grassroots activism is very encouraging, and I’m pleased to see that mobilization efforts are changing the legislative and electoral landscape. I understand that we are under a difficult timeline, but this energy from multiple constituencies still inspires optimism.

Do you have any links to images, documents or other pieces of research which build on or add to the article? Or a suggested reading list?

I. Carrillo: Here are some suggested readings related to the topic of my article:

• Charles Mills. 1997. The Racial Contract. Cornell University Press.
• Louise Seamster and Danielle Purifoy. 2020. “What is environmental racism for? Place-based harm and relational development.” Environmental Sociology.
• Leah Stokes. 2020. Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States. Oxford University Press.
• Monica White. 2018. Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement. University of North Carolina Press.
• Jill Harrison. 2019. From the Inside Out: The Fight for Environmental Justice within Government Agencies. MIT Press.