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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the use of the environmental competency group (ECG) method as a tactic for bringing residents and scientists in coastal Louisiana into collaboration on designing coastal restoration projects. Based on qualitative research on the competency group during a period of ten months, this article describes the achievements and limitations of the ECG as a technique for democratizing the production of scientific knowledge. Particular attention is paid to distinctions between expert and lay or traditional environmental knowledge in literature on ECGs and how the aspirations of the ECG unfold in the context of coastal restoration planning in Louisiana. Against this backdrop, the article first presents a theoretical overview of the ECG method. Next, it describes the methods and outcomes of an ECG in Louisiana and the efforts of members of the ECG to collaboratively design numeric predictive models and restoration projects. From here, the article analyzes the ideological barriers faced by ECG in their attempts to overcome a one-directional, input-based framework for resident–scientist collaboration. The article ends with a series of critical questions about the possibilities of ECG to achieve the democratization of environmental knowledge in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]