Monica Barra

Monica Barra is an Assistant Professor with joint appointments in the Department of Anthropology and School of the Earth, Ocean & Environment at the University of South Carolina. Her interdisciplinary research examines racial and environmental justice in the American South, focusing on coastal communities, land loss, and restoration politics. Barra holds affiliations with African American Studies and Geography departments.

Barra's ethnographic work investigates how wetland loss, climate change, and restoration projects intersect with racial inequalities in coastal Louisiana. Her research explores coastal communities' perspectives on environmental restoration as social transformation. Current projects examine the protection of heirs property (family land) in coastal regions. She maintains collaborations with engineers, geologists, coastal communities, and arts institutions.

Recent publications demonstrate Barra's critical approach to environmental governance, analyzing restoration politics through frameworks of racial justice and decolonial theory. Her book project "Good Sediment" examines racial politics in coastal restoration. Barra has received multiple prestigious fellowships including from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and National Science Foundation.

Her courses include Environmental Anthropology, Environmental Racism and Justice, and Decolonizing the Environment. Barra directs the Critical Ecologies Lab and contributes to interdisciplinary initiatives examining climate resilience in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta region.