Results & Publications

Abstract: Even in Eastern Europe, whiteness organises space, race, class and environmental justice research. Inspired by whiteness theory, we draw on a case of environmental injustice affecting the Roma community of Dăroaia—a segregated neighbourhood in Roșia Montană—in the context of the mining conflict over the eponymous gold mine. We analyse how whiteness as ‘gadjoness’ dehumanises Roma communities through institutionalised mundane practices of spatial and discursive exclusion. Whiteness operates as an insidious power relation, which we set about to expose. Following a historical approach to racial exploitation in Eastern Europe and analysing 31 interviews with local actors, we apply a reflexive methodology to question the constitution of race and whiteness in Romania. Our results show how socio-environmental injustice is reproduced through racism and whiteness, is inscribed in space and normalised through racist institutional practices, but is also exposed and challenged by Roma agency.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.70170

Abstract: In this article, we analyze the postsocialist transformations of Romania’s political forests through the lens of the environmental justice approach. We do so by examining how environmental injustices are intertwined with the postsocialist processes of land reform, the emergence of conservation narratives, and the reconfiguration of political power throughout this period. We draw on data collected through semi-structured and expert interviews, local ethnographies and various case studies conducted across three research projects from 2016 to 2024. We contend that the precariousness of forest work, the deepening of firewood dependency, and the gendered and racialized experiences of injustice faced by many forest-dependent groups highlight a need to move beyond the recognition versus redistribution dilemma in environmental justice literature. Our analysis reveals that injustices are exacerbated by structural dynamics, suggesting that complex complicities at play in the political forests blur the lines between victims, perpetrators, and harms.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2026.103805

Abstract: This paper explores the academic conceptualization of environmental justice (EJ) in post-socialist Eastern Europe (EE) through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of 106 peer-reviewed articles from the early 1990s to 2024. The study focuses on two main directions. First, we examined knowledge production and found that EJ scholarship in EE only gained significant attention after the EU accession of countries in the region. Additionally, research on EJ issues in EE appears to be academically dependent on Western funding and expertise. Second, we investigated how authors approach EJ in EE by analysing the theoretical perspectives they adopt, the types of conflicts that receive attention, and whether there is a focus on ethnic minorities in the area. We identified a significant gap between the scholarship reviewed and EJ conflicts as reported in the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJ Atlas). This disconnect is notably evident for Roma communities, whose environmental harms are documented in activist literature but mostly overlooked in academia. Additionally, there is a disparity between the urban focus of EJ literature and the underrepresentation of rural cases. The paper underscores the epistemic marginalization of vulnerable communities, such as rural and Roma groups, and their grassroots perspectives on EJ.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/25739638.2026.2671384

Abstract: The post-socialist transition in Romania has materialised in myriad factors that slowly eroded the capacity for social reproduction of rural populations. Using the concept of pin-prick land grabbing, this article draws attention to how, against the backdrop of loss of rural social fabric, unequal power dynamics among different stakeholders have led to small-scale land disputes and normalisation of extractive violence, which eventually facilitated large-scale land grabbing. By bringing to the surface these ‘hidden in plain sight’ forms of violence, the authors show the structural complexity of the phenomenon, putting forward the need for an environmental justice approach to land grabbing.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2026.2651555

Abstract: This article examines environmental injustice in a semi-rural, post-socialist community through a case study of Băicoi, Romania. Based on ethnographic research, it shows how waste infrastructures, weak regulation, and institutional neglect produced environmental marginality through accumulation by contamination. We introduce the concept of slow labor of contestation to capture residents’ layered civic efforts – monitoring, complaint filing, protest participation, procedural engagement, and legal action – through which they confront prolonged harm. The analysis reveals how environmental knowledge was systematically dismissed, generating intertwined procedural and epistemic injustice in post-socialist waste governance.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2026.2648024

Abstract: Looking at the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) case ‘Gabriel Resources vs Romania’, this paper documents the intangible losses, the chronic stress, and the damaged dignity of communities having to defend their livelihoods in the long-term ongoing conflicts over mineral resources. We expand the concept of environmental injustice as an ‘insidious’ form of toxicity ‘poisoning’ bodies even before chemical contamination, where the threat of ISDS is one of the many tools used by corporate power to reinforce itself. This paper answers scholarly calls for more empirical studies on the ISDS to expose the politics behind incommensurable valuation conflicts and justice as recognition. We analyse the ISDS case as part and parcel of the hegemonic extractivist logic of colonial power, capitalist accumulation by dispossession, and ontological occupation, which have left deep scars in the collective spaces of people imagining possible alternative futures.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2025.2596495

Abstract: This article analyses how a significant part of the mainstream press in Romania framed the farmers’ protests in January 2024. A complex social phenomenon, with a tradition in Western European countries, especially in France, this transnational revolt movement attracts the attention of journalists only during the actual duration of the street events. The study aims to identify and correlate the preferred framing angles in the mainstream media, to highlight recurring themes, narratives and predominant patterns in the journalistic practice of covering the protests. The questions that formed the basis of the research are the following, namely: 1. How does the mainstream media in Romania frame the farmers’ protests? 2. What are the dominant themes and narratives and how are they correlated with certain ideological frames? 3. Is there an interest in the mainstream media for the intersectional approach of social and environmental justice issues, in the context of the farmers’ protests? The exploratory research was conducted manually on a corpus of 189 journalistic materials, predominantly news, collected from the news sites that covered the most, in quantitative terms, the farmers’ protests of January 2024.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51391/trva.2025.3.06

Abstract: This contribution will address the Romanian working-class novel in its relation to the canonical novelistic production of the early and mid-twentieth century. The chapter discusses several important contributions to the genre before WW2 and the start of the communist period in Romania, as well as the conversation developed within the Romanian literary system with the import of socialist realism in the 1950s and early 1960s. In a paradoxical twist, the Romanian interwar renditions of the genre failed to be canonized following the social realist shift, as they were replaced by an influx of Soviet translations. The General Dictionary of Romanian Literature and The Digital Museum of the Romanian Novel serve as the empirical bases for the investigation.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-92306-7_6

Abstract: Around the world, local communities supported by national and transnational advocacy networks are fighting to defend or preserve their homes and livelihoods from extractivist projects that threaten their environments. In this chapter, we look at Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) as a form of prospective environmental (in)justice (PEJ). ISDS provides for multinational corporations to sue states when they have a grievance over the state’s treatment of their investment. We argue that ISDS continues the structural violence of extractive projects and the pre-project harms resulting from foreign investor-welcoming climates. The chapter draws on empirical research on the Roșia Montană case in Romania to extend the theory of PEJ to scenarios where communities have succeeded in stopping a mining project, but the investor brings arbitration against the state, thus prolonging the “soft” extractive violence. We analyse how grassroots movements formed coalitions with national and foreign NGOs, succeeded in stopping a Canadian mining project based on cyanide extraction, and inscribed Roșia Montană as a UNESCO World Heritage site. In response, the Canadian mining company instigated investment arbitration proceedings against Romania. The case illustrates that, despite the legal victory of the Romanian state, international investment arbitration potentially allows “green crime”, rendering it awfully lawful.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-05569-9_12

Abstract: The 2023-2025 farmers’ protests in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), which were sparked by the influx of Ukrainian grain following the re-routing of Ukrainian grain shipments after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, attracted considerable political and social attention at both national and EU level. Most interpretations of these protests can be narrowed down to three somewhat competing assumptions: (i) the farmers’ protests were economically unfounded, as Ukrainian agricultural exports did not damage the CEE markets; (ii) the farmers’ protests were aligned with, or orchestrated by, a specific political force; (iii) these protests jeopardised the EU’s solidarity and support for Ukraine. This article analyses farmers’ protests in Poland, Romania and Hungary in light of the aforementioned assumptions. It reveals the complex socio-economic and political problems faced by farmers in CEE. It concludes that the farmers’ protests are indicative of a systemic crisis of the dominant agri-food regime in which the influx of Ukrainian grain was a trigger rather than a root cause of the crisis.

Link: https://www.tni.org/files/2025-11/WEB_Seeds_of_Discord.pdf