The slow labor of contestation. Environmental injustice in Băicoi, Romania

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.