Collectively cultivating the pleasures of interembodiment: Waste labor, nuclearity, and river love in Bulgaria

Elana Resnick

Social Science & Medicine, 2025, vol. 381, issue C

Abstract: How do people cultivate and share pleasure while navigating environments that might also be killing them? This article explores the role of interembodied networks and collaborations in contexts of environmental degradation and presumed risk. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Bulgaria, I focus on how these networks take shape among: (1) Romani women waste workers in Sofia and (2) white Bulgarian residents living near two sites of nuclearity: the still operating Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant and the abandoned Belene Nuclear Power Plant, both situated along the Danube River. In sites of potential toxicity, risk, and infrastructural deterioration, I trace how people forge interembodied relationships that are not only life-sustaining but, at times, also sources of pleasure.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953625004149
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:381:y:2025:i:c:s0277953625004149

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118084

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().