In Oil and Indigenous Resistance at Standing Rock, Rebecca Bramwell looks at the Indigenous stand for “Water is Life” against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, next to the Missouri River and Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The article concludes that the water protectors have “been a symbol of hope for so many, and shown resistance against Big Oil as well as proven the resilience of Indigenous value systems.”
In Women’s Leadership at Standing Rock, Liz Randol examines the central role of women in the Standing Rock water protector camps, where “the women often led the struggle, as spiritual leaders (sometimes in combination with the men), as leaders of prayer circles, as oral historians…most often as the unsung heroes who saw a need and filled it.”
In Indigenous Resistance to Enbridge Oil Pipelines, Raven Yamada studies the network of oil pipelines controlled by the Candian company Enbridge, from the Alberta Tar Sands and Bakken Oil Shale Basin. The article details the resistance led by Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe) tribes in the western Great Lakes region and Tsilhqot’in First Nation on the British Columbia coast.
In Keystone XL Pipeline: A History, Junius Dexter considers the proposal for the northern leg of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands through the Northern Plains, and how Native Americans and white ranchers/farmers united as the “Cowboy Indian Alliance” to stop the project under the Obama administration, and are restarting their resistance during the Trump administration.
In Water Protectors Against the Trans-Pecos Pipeline, Roma Castellanos studies the proposal for the Trans-Pecos Pipeline in Texas, which has also been opposed by an alliance of Native American, ranchers, and environmentalists inspired by Standing Rock, and countering the same pipeline company. The opposition uses a strong message of protecting river-based watersheds in the semi-arid landscape, and extending the resistance to education and the arts.
See also the section on other Energy issues.