Southwest Humanities is very proud to announce the publication of the 75th book we have indexed for Duke University Press: The Business of Racism: Labor and Environment in Brazil’s Racial Capitalism by Ian Carrillo was published on 16 May 2026 and is a wide-ranging sociological study of how racial inequality is reproduced through the intertwined systems of labor, environmental governance, and capitalist development in Brazil. Focusing on the country’s sugarcane and ethanol industries, Carrillo examines how efforts in the 2000s to improve labor and environmental conditions were met with resistance from powerful industry elites who mobilized long-standing racial ideologies to protect their economic interests. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in plantations and mills, as well as interviews with regulators and business leaders, the book demonstrates how racism operates not only through explicit prejudice but also through institutional practices, political discourse, and the organization of economic life itself.

One of the book’s major contributions is its integration of race, labor, and environmental analysis into a unified account of “racial capitalism.” Carrillo shows that environmental reform and labor regulation cannot be understood separately from the racial hierarchies embedded within Brazilian society and state institutions. In doing so, the book advances debates in sociology, Latin American studies, environmental justice, labor studies, and critical race theory, while also extending broader discussions about how capitalism depends on and reproduces racialized forms of inequality. By linking workplace exploitation, ecological degradation, and political backlash, The Business of Racism provides an important framework for understanding the persistence of inequality in contemporary democracies and the challenges involved in pursuing racial, economic, and environmental justice all simultaneously.

For more information about this important new work, please see the publisher’s website here.