Standing with Standing Rock
Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement
Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon, Editors
HONORABLE MENTION, NATIONAL COUNCIL ON PUBLIC HISTORY BOOK AWARD
Amid the Standing Rock movement to protect the land and the water that millions depend on for life, the Oceti Sakowin (the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota people) reunited. Through poetry and prose, essays, photography, interviews, and polemical interventions, the contributors reflect on Indigenous history and politics and on the movement’s significance. Their work challenges our understanding of colonial history not simply as “lessons learned” but as essential guideposts for activism.
As our songs and prayers echo across the prairie, we need the public to see that in standing up for our rights, we do so on behalf of the millions of Americans who will be affected by this pipeline. —David Archambault II, from the interior
It is prophecy. A Black Snake will spread itself across the land, bringing destruction while uniting Indigenous nations. The Dakota Access Pipeline is the Black Snake, crossing the Missouri River north of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The oil pipeline united communities along its path—from North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois—and galvanized a twenty-first-century Indigenous resistance movement marching under the banner Mni Wiconi—Water Is Life! Standing Rock youth issued a call, and millions around the world and thousands of Water Protectors from more than three hundred Native nations answered. Amid the movement to protect the land and the water that millions depend on for life, the Oceti Sakowin (the Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota people) reunited. A nation was reborn with renewed power to protect the environment and support Indigenous grassroots education and organizing. This book assembles the multitude of voices of writers, thinkers, artists, and activists from that movement.
Through poetry and prose, essays, photography, interviews, and polemical interventions, the contributors, including leaders of the Standing Rock movement, reflect on Indigenous history and politics and on the movement’s significance. Their work challenges our understanding of colonial history not simply as “lessons learned” but as essential guideposts for current and future activism.
Contributors: David Archambault II, Natalie Avalos, Tomoki Mari Birkett, Vanessa Bowen, Alleen Brown, Kevin Bruyneel, D. T. Cochrane, Michelle L. Cook, Deborah Cowen, Andrew Curley, Martin Danyluk, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Elizabeth Ellis, Marcella Gilbert, Sandy Grande, Jaida Grey Eagle, Craig Howe, Elise Hunchuck, Michelle Latimer, Layli Long Soldier, David Uahikeaikalei‘ohu Maile, Jason Mancini, Sarah Sunshine Manning, Katie Mazer, Teresa Montoya, Christopher Newell, The NYC Stands with Standing Rock Collective, Jeffrey Ostler, Will Parrish, Shiri Pasternak, endawnis Spears, Alice Speri, Anne Spice, Kim TallBear, Mark K. Tilsen, Edward Valandra, Joel Waters, Tyler Young.
Awards
Honorable mention, National Council on Public History Book Award 2021
$24.95 paper ISBN 978-1-5179-0536-1
$100.00 cloth ISBN 978-1-5179-0535-4
496 pages, 36 b&w photos, 7 x 9, August 2019
Nick Estes is Kul Wicasa, a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. He is assistant professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico; cofounder of The Red Nation, an organization dedicated to Indigenous liberation; and author of Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance.
Jaskiran Dhillon is a first-generation anticolonial scholar and organizer who grew up on Treaty Six Cree Territory in Saskatchewan, Canada. She is associate professor of global studies and anthropology at The New School and author of Prairie Rising: Indigenous Youth, Decolonization, and the Politics of Intervention.
As our songs and prayers echo across the prairie, we need the public to see that in standing up for our rights, we do so on behalf of the millions of Americans who will be affected by this pipeline.
David Archambault II, from the interior
There is no alternative to water. There is no alternative to this Earth. This fight has become my life, and it’s not over. I think this is only the beginning for me, for all of us. Do you want a future for your children and grandchildren? If you want them to have a future then stand with Standing Rock because this is just the beginning of a revolution.
Zaysha Grinnell, from the interior
We will put our best warriors in the front. We are the vanguard. We are the Hunkpapa Lakota. That means the horn of the buffalo. That’s who we are. We are protectors of our nation of Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires. Know who we are.
Phyllis Young, from the interior
While the editors have written their own books on the subject and are active participants in modern indigenous movements, this contextual anthology gives recognition and voice to the many who participated in the #NoDAPL protests. Highly recommended for casting light on a landmark cultural movement.
Library Journal
The pages of references are a sort of road map, not just of a roadmap through the book, but a road map through time, and specifically through the time when Standing Rock camps were alive, pulsing with life, and giving birth to revolution and movement.
Censored News
An essential volume to understand the history and significance of the famous resistance action, combining everything from essays and interviews to poems and photography.
The Revelator
As a rejection of this dominant historiography, the volume demonstrates that the #NoDAPL is a legacy of ongoing Indigenous resistance and not a failure.
H-Net Reviews
Standing with Standing Rock represents a remarkable collection of original and previously published essays, interviews, poems,and personal reflections by those who were on the ground at the Dakota Access Pipeline standoff and others who acted in its support.
American Literary History
A concise and readable volume on the #NODAPL Movement and its connection to global Indigenous decolonization activism.
American Indian Quarterly
Standing with Standing Rock presents multiple vantage points and a plurality of perspectives to voice a common theme and a hopeful message.
Alternative Law
Standing with Standing Rock delivers on all that an edited collection promises, appealingly varied in its contributions while remaining cohesive and compelling in its core focus on Indigenous sovereignty.
ISLE
The book brings to life the voices of those who stood up at Standing Rock and enables the reader to experience the beauty, brutality and vision of a different future.
Against the Current
Contents
Introduction: The Black Snake, #NoDAPL, and the Rise of a People’s Movement
Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon
Part I. Leading the Resistance
1. Badass Indigenous Women Caretake Relations: #Standingrock, #IdleNoMore, #BlackLivesMatter
Kim TallBear
2. In the Beginning
Mark K. Tilsen
3. “This Fight Has Become My Life, and It’s Not Over”: An Interview with Zaysha Grinnell
Jaskiran Dhillon
4. Traditional Leadership and the Oceti Sakowin: An Interview with Lewis Grassrope
Nick Estes
5. Taking a Stand at Standing Rock
David Archambault II
Part II. Living Histories
6. “They Took Our Footprint Out of the Ground”: An Interview with LaDonna Bravebull Allard
Nick Estes
7. Mnisose
Craig Howe and Tyler Young
8. Mni Wiconi: Water Is [More Than] Life
Edward Valandra
9. The Great Sioux Nation and the Resistance to Colonial Land Grabbing
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
10. The Supreme Law of the Land: Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline
Jeffrey Ostler and Nick Estes
Part III. Legal and Sociopolitical Landscapes and State Violence
11. Striking at the Heart of Capital: International Financial Institutions and Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights
Michelle L. Cook
12. Beyond Environmentalism: #NoDAPL as Assertion of Tribal Sovereignty
Andrew Curley
13. Resolutions
Layli Long Soldier
14. Centering Sovereignty: How Standing Rock Changed the Conversation
Elizabeth Ellis
15. Counterterrorism Tactics at Standing Rock
Alleen Brown, Will Parrish, and Alice Speri
Part IV. Environmental Colonization
16. Heal the People, Heal the Land: An Interview with Freda Huson
Anne Spice
17. The Financing Problem of Colonialism: How Indigenous Jurisdiction Is Valued in Pipeline Politics
Shiri Pasternak, Katie Mazer, and D. T. Cochrane
18. What Standing Rock Teaches Us about Environmental Justice
Jaskiran Dhillon
Part V. Education and Critical Pedagogies
19. Red Praxis: Lessons from Mashantucket to Standing Rock
Sandy Grande, Natalie Avalos, Jason Mancini, Christopher Newell, and endawnis Spears
20. For Standing Rock: A Moving Dialogue
Tomoki Mari Birkett and Teresa Montoya
21. A Lesson in Natural Law
Marcella Gilbert
22. Standing Rock: The Actualization of a Community and a Movement
Sarah Sunshine Manning
23. #NoDAPL Syllabus Project
The New York City Stands with Standing Rock Collective
Part VI. Indigenous Organizing and Solidarity in Movement Building
24. Lessons from the Land: Peace through Relationship
Michelle Latimer
25. Wake Work versus Work of Settler Memory: Modes of Solidarity in #NoDAPL, Black Lives Matter, and Anti-Trumpism
Kevin Bruyneel
26. Threats of Violence: Refusing the Thirty Meter Telescope and Dakota Access Pipeline
David Uahikeaikalei‘ohu Maile
27. Decolonize This Place and Radical Solidarity: An Interview with Nitasha Dhillon and Amin Husain
Jaskiran Dhillon
28. Death of Hydra
Joel Waters
29. Mapping a Many-Headed Hydra: Transnational Infrastructures of Extraction and Resistance
Katie Mazer, Martin Danyluk, Elise Hunchuck, and Deborah Cowen
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Publication Information
Index
About This Book
Related Publications
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