Living on the Edge: Oysters, Life, and Property on Louisiana's Coastal Frontier

Living on the Edge: Oysters, Life, and Property on Louisiana's Coastal Frontier is an ethnographic inquiry into the racial politics of the transforming American shore. Research for this dissertation was conducted in southeastern Louisiana, where the shore consists of hundreds of miles of swamps and marshes that are disappearing at an estimated rate of 25 square miles per year under conditions of climate change and the aftermath of widespread oil and gas development. Over the course of sixteen months, I followed oystermen, lawyers, politicians, and restoration advocates who each intervene on the shore in different ways. Analyzing the dissolution and restoration of Louisiana's coast—both materially and as a legal concept—I argue that contemporary shoreline protection and restoration projects don't just redraw the line between land and sea, they are also sites of social differentiation and racialization.