Good Sediment: Race and Restoration in Coastal Louisiana

Abstract

Building on a small, yet growing body of scholarship focused on the political ecology of race and critical race studies of science and technology, this article follows the ways sediment, science, and race intersect on the grounds of environmental restoration in coastal Louisiana. Mobilizing ethnographic field work and historical research conducted with African-American communities and coastal scientists, I empirically expand upon geographer Kathryn Yusoff’s (2018) notion of the “geosocial registers” of the Anthropocene through an examination of the entwined histories of coastal engineering and racial inequality that situate contemporary debates about large scale coastal restoration projects along Louisiana’s disappearing coastline. In dialogue with critical work on the relationship between racism, science, and the constitution of the Anthropocene, I argue that coastal restoration is a geophysical and social process upon which racial inequality is forged and contested. The article concludes by considering how environmental restoration can participate in creating alternative forms of social and environmental repair by aligning the goals of coastal science with those of racial justice for communities of color living in changing coastal landscapes.

本文属于种族政治生态学、科技的批判种族研究。目前这类研究较少, 但是在增多。本文研究了在美国路易斯安那州海岸环境恢复过程中, 沉积物、科学和种族的相互作用。大规模地恢复路易斯安那州正在消失的海岸带存在着争议。为此, 通过对非裔美国人社区和海岸科学家的人种学实地考察和历史研究, 文章实验性地拓展了地理学者Kathryn Yusoff关于人类世的地理社会名录（geosocial registers）概念, 审视了海岸工程和种族不平等之间密切关联的历史。通过批判性地研究种族主义、科学、人类世构成的相互关系, 作者认为, 海岸恢复是一个产生和抵制种族不平等的地球物理过程和社会过程。在变化的沿海地区, 通过把有色人种社区的种族正义同海岸科学的目标统一起来, 环境恢复可以创造其它形式的社会修复和环境修复。

Construyendo a partir del pequeño pero creciente cuerpo de erudición enfocada sobre la ecología política de raza y estudios raciales críticos de ciencia y tecnología, este artículo explora las maneras como el sedimento, la ciencia y la raza se entrecruzan en los campos de restauración ambiental del litoral de Luisiana. Movilizando el trabajo de campo etnográfico y la investigación histórica realizados con comunidades afro-americanas y científicos relacionados con cuestiones costeras, yo expando empíricamente la noción de la geógrafa Kathryn Yusoff (2018) sobre “registros geosociales” del Antropoceno, por medio de un examen de las historias entramadas de la ingeniería costera y la desigualdad racial que posicionan los debates contemporáneos acerca de los proyectos de restauración costanera a gran escala a lo largo del litoral obliterado de Luisiana. En diálogo con el trabajo crítico sobre la relación entre racismo, ciencia y la constitución del Antropoceno, argumento que la restauración costanera es un proceso geofísico y social sobre el cual se forja y disputa la desigualdad racial. El artículo concluye considerando el modo como la restauración ambiental puede participar creando formas alternativas de reparación social y ambiental, alineando las metas de la ciencia costera con las de la justicia racial para las comunidades de color que habitan en estos cambiantes paisajes litorales.

Key Words:

• coastal restoration
• critical race STS
• geology
• political ecology of race
• sediment

关键词:

• ：海岸恢复
• 科技的批判种族研究
• 地质
• 种族政治生态学
• 沉积物

Palabras clave::

• ecología política de la raza
• estudios raciales críticos de ciencia y tecnología (STS)
• geología
• restauración costanera
• sedimento

Acknowledgments

I thank colleagues in the Critical Ecologies Lab at the University of South Carolina for their valuable feedback on earlier versions of this article and the anonymous reviewers whose comments helped to sharpen the article’s arguments. Finally, this article would not exist without the materials and conversations that residents from Plaquemines Parish and coastal scientists in Louisiana shared with me. I thank them for their kindness.

Funding

Research for this article was supported by a doctoral research grant from the Wenner Gren Foundation, a Monroe Fellowship from the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University, a Rebirth Grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (sponsored by Louisiana Sea Grant), and a Dissertation Writing Fellowship from the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Notes

1 The Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Surge Damage Reduction System is a series of infrastructures (levees, flood gates and walls, pumping systems) designed to protect the greater New Orleans area from damages associated with a “one in one hundred year” flood from storm surges associated with tropical systems and hurricanes.

2 All names are pseudonyms.

3 I use the terms African-American and black to denote the range of African-American, Creole, and mixed-race communities with whom I conducted this research. This reflects the most common racial terms used by participants.

4 See Benjamin (2013), L. Braun (2014), and Nelson (2016) for recent examples.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Monica Patrice Barra

MONICA PATRICE BARRA is an Assistant Professor in the School of the Earth, Ocean & Environment and Department of Anthropology and faculty affiliate of the African American Studies Program at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research focuses on the ways in which racial inequalities and geographies are forged through scientific practices, racial histories, and transformations of rural and built environments.