The Dakota Access Pipeline: Water is Life, Money is Powerful, and Consequences are Real

• In Event: 1149 - Scorched Earth: Climate Change, Energy, and the Sociology of Development

Abstract

Sociological research and analysis of the Dakota Access Pipeline requires one to look at the past in order to understand the current grassroots movement. American Indians and all Indigenous peoples on the lands of this nation are too often deemed as identities of the past. As a result of American colonialism driven by capitalist expansion, Native Americans were forced onto arid, isolated reservations, hindering spiritual and historical connections with indigenous land; each affected tribe forced to assimilate into a lifestyle where poverty remains overwhelming, healthcare necessities are unmet, and identity has become a battle. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe protests are not only a movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline, but also a battle to maintain an identity in present day American society where the historical traumas and legacies of colonization thrive. Through research of academic sources, online news databases, interviews and books, the paper investigates forces of globalization that fueled the Dakota Access Pipeline and Standing Rock movement; establishing that this systematic exploitation of the Standing Rock tribal land and people is driven by a factor that could only be described as neo-colonial.

Authors

• Ryan DeCarsky, UC SANTA BARBARA

• Bhavya Jha, University of California, Santa Barbara