Grounded: Resisting the Exploitations of the Land from Mardy Murie’s "Wilderness" Preservation to Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk’s Sacred Space Activism

• In Event: Ancestral Lands and Sacred Spaces

Abstract

This paper explores the changing nature of women's activism in resisting the capitalist exploitation of land and water for profit or in the name of "progress." The paper compares the work and rhetoric of activist Mardy Murie, who helped create the Wilderness Act (1964) and the magnificent Gates of the Arctic National Park, to the activism and rhetoric of indigenous activist Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk (Ute) in the preservation of the extraordinary landscape of Bears Ears (Utah) as a sacred landscape for the use of Native peoples.

Presenter

• Beth Vanlandingham, Carson Newman University