Good Sediment: Race and Restoration in Coastal Louisiana

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.