Paper short abstract:

The US Gulf Coast is a space shared between the oil and fishing industries. Exploring ethnographic research conducted in southern Louisiana can give insight into how the boundaries between corporations and communities alter, develop and remain the same after a major man-made ecological disaster.

Paper long abstract:

Plaquemines Parish on the Louisiana Gulf Coast presents a fascinating context when exploring the negotiation and development of corporate, social and physical boundaries. Surrounded on three sides by levees which are crucial in preventing regular flooding, residents constantly maintain geographic boundaries in their relationship with the natural world. This physical and symbolic boundary was breached in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina decimated the parish, causing massive destruction to every man-made structure in the community. As the region began to recover it was dealt a second blow in 2010, as the Deepwater Horizon/BP Oil Spill polluted the waters and marshes surrounding the parish. The waters of the Gulf of Mexico are a shared space, utilised by both the fishing and oil industries. These two industries dominate the economic landscape of the parish with the majority of the population relying on them for their livelihoods. The boundaries between these international corporations and self-employed fishermen therefore have always been malleable, and at times confrontational, and the oil spill has exacerbated this on-going relationship. Additionally to this, within the community and often within each person, the mixed boundaries of loyalty, necessity, despair and resignation with relation to the oil industry must be constantly negotiated and developed. This is also true of this geographically shared space which now sees an uncertain mixture of renewal, development and decay. This space sits at the boundaries of land and sea, dependence on oil men and autonomy in fishing boats, hope and despair, on the borders of corporations and community.