A researcher with LSU’s department of English has received a $305,045 grant from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to study how Louisiana’s offshore oil and gas industry affects people living in Plaquemines Parish, specifically oyster farmers.
The grant is significant because it is rarely given to academics outside of the sciences and because LSU Professor Carolyn Ware is a folklorist. Also, while it is not near Baton Rouge, the industry in the region is connected to and fuels Baton Rouge industry.
Ware plans to collect oral histories from 80 people across the parish on what role the industry has had in their lives. Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes have been well covered by other scholars, Ware writes, in an essay published by LSU, but very little research has been done in Plaquemines Parish.
