Enacting repair on the half shell: The political ecology of oyster shell recycling in coastal Georgia

Abstract

The Eastern United States coastline remains a highly contested space. Locations for Black autonomy, leisure, and foodways have become marked by debates over private property and rightful land ownership. The Southern Georgia coast is marked by efforts to redevelop land and coastal waterways into resort areas for tourism, yet these areas remain at risk under conditions of climate change. Simultaneously, coastal management projects seek to protect coastlines from erosion and the impacts of sea level rise. Black feminist ecological logics have long planted seeds for how such projects can and should be approached. Thinking with Black feminist notions around ecological relation, what would it mean to generate coastal planning methods that center loss, solidarity and good relations amid ecological precarity? This paper makes meaning from oyster shell recycling projects in Georgia - those that reconnect culinary consumption inland to efforts towards rebuilding coastal infrastructure. Moving beyond the lens of the blue economy, oyster shell recycling presents an opportunity to forge collective futures centered on historically Black and Indigenous foodways.