Environmental sustainability is often framed as universally beneficial — a shared global mission to curb climate change, reduce waste and build greener futures. But what if some of these well-intentioned policies deepen the very inequalities they aim to solve?
That question drives the work of UC Santa Barbara anthropologist Elana Resnick, whose research traces how European Union environmental initiatives interact with — and often intensify — longstanding racial hierarchies. Drawing on two decades of fieldwork in Bulgaria, her new book, “Refusing Sustainability: Race and Environmentalism in a Changing Europe” (Stanford University Press, 2025), offers a rare, ground-level view of how sustainability policies unfold in the daily lives of some of Europe’s most marginalized communities.
Resnick’s work centers on Roma communities, the largest minority group in Europe and one historically subjected to segregation, discrimination and systemic exclusion. “In Bulgaria, Roma comprise more than 10% of the population, yet they’ve been systematically pushed to the margins for centuries,” she said. These exclusions shape nearly every aspect of daily life, from access to education and jobs to political representation.
To understand how these dynamics unfold, Resnick immersed herself in the communities she studied, prioritizing an ethical research approach. For nearly a year, she worked as a contracted street sweeper on a team of 40 Romani women in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital. “The street sweepers are under constant surveillance,” she said. “At first they told me, ‘I can’t talk to you — my bosses are watching.’ The only way I could speak with them without threatening their jobs was to work alongside them.”
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