BARA researchers began working for the U.S. Minerals Management Service in 1996 through a subcontract to TechLaw, Inc. The initial baseline study was carried out by an interdisciplinary team and designed to study the historic, social, and economic changes in three coastal areas - south Louisiana (Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes), Coastal Bend, Texas (San Patricio County), and Mobile Bay, Alabama (Mobile and Baldwin counties) - since 1930 and the roles of oil and gas development on the Gulf of Mexico outer continental shelf (OCS) in those changes. Researchers identified three issue areas and analyzed their relationship to the oil and gas industry - changes in economic and social structure, community landscapes, and education. A two-volume report, Assessment of Historical, Social, and Economic Impacts of OCS Development on Gulf Coast Communities, was published in 2001. BARA researchers were responsible for conducting baseline ethnographic research in the three communities.

Building upon our initial work, in 1998 BARA researchers began a multiyear investigation of the impacts of the offshore oil and gas industry on individuals, families, and communities of south Louisiana. The purpose of the study was to examine the nature of OCS-related work and its impacts on the lifestyles of individuals and families and on the communities in which they live. This study was conducted within two parishes of Acadiana, a 22-parish area in southern Louisiana named for the immigrants from Acadia in Nova Scotia who settled there in the mid-1700's. Though southern Louisiana residents trace their origins to numerous groups besides the Acadians, Cajun often becomes a gloss for local white residents. In contemporary Louisiana, many other ethnic groups, including Vietnamese, Laotians, African Americans, Cubans, Mexicans, and Houma and Chitimacha Indians, are represented in both the oil and gas industry and in the communities of the region. The study focused on two communities, Morgan City and New Iberia. University researchers worked in partnership with fourteen teacher-researchers from these two communities to conduct the study. The results were published in 2002 in a two-volume report, Social and Economic Impacts of Outer Continental Shelf Activity on Individuals and Families. Volume I describes the range of social and economic impacts and is intended to address the agency's information requirements in preparing social impact assessments. The volume summarizes areas of social and economic impacts that accrue to individuals and families in the industry and reviews impacts on communities by examining demographic and social change, housing, healthcare, education and training, emergency social services, and strategies for economic diversification. It examines work in six sectors - drilling, production, fabrication, diving, offshore vessels, and trucking - because these cover a range of different work schedules, patterns of training and mobility, safety and risk factors, and responses to industry dynamics. Volume II presents four case studies, "Offshore Employment as Lifestyle and Culture: Work and Family in New Iberia," "Morgan City Chronicles: Living through a Downturn," "Parents and Children: Changing Roles, Changing Expectations," and "Captains of the Road and Sea: Providing Transportation for the Gulf of Mexico Oilpatch."

Responding to interest from local residents, agency personnel, and researchers, in 2000 BARA faculty and a graduate student began collecting oral histories of men and women who served as pioneers in the development of the offshore oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico. That initial investigation led to a four-year study of the History of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry and its Effects on Louisiana. As one part of this project, BARA researchers partnered with community members to gather oral histories from workers, family members, community leaders, and others whose lives were shaped by the offshore oil and gas industry in southern Louisiana.