Snakes and Continuance: The Oceti Sakowin’s Resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Fight for Indigenous Environmental Justice.

Abstract

Using the lens of Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ), this thesis examines the experiences and resistance of the Oceti Sakowin Water Protectors within the NoDAPL movement to the environmental injustice brought by the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Through a case study approach and drawing on the NoDAPL archive, this thesis argues that the pipeline’s construction and anticipated pollution are experienced as manifestations of ‘colonial ecological violence’ because they disrupt the Oceti Sakowin’s spiritual and cultural connection to the environment, culminating in cultural erasure. Resulting, the thesis argues that the Oceti Sakowin’s resistance embodies ‘collective continuance’, a commitment to reviving and preserving traditional lifeways, asserting the right to cultural survival. With these findings, this thesis contributes to Indigenous-centred critiques of conventional environmental justice (EJ) frameworks - distributive, procedural and recognitional - for failing to address the specific injustices faced by Indigenous communities. It argues that the focus on distributive issues as central to environmental injustice, and consequently the emphasis on distributive justice as a solution, remains inadequate. While procedural justice and recognition justice seek to improve the achievement of distributive justice and broaden the understanding of justice to include fair processes and recognition for cultural identities, they do not challenge the primacy of distributive justice and, thus, fail to address the cultural and spiritual dimensions of Indigenous realities. This study, therefore, calls for adopting an inclusive and relational approach to EJ in which Indigenous perspectives are central. In particular, it argues for the integration of Indigenous knowledge into environmental policy-making and management in order to realise more comprehensive frameworks for EJ. This could include the preservation of ecosystems and the promotion of ecological restoration projects guided by Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), understood as the revitalisation of cultural practices and Indigenous sovereignty through the restoration of ecosystems. These frameworks aim to move beyond a top-down approach and focus on bottom-up, community-led initiatives that empower local communities by respecting diverse cultural contexts and promoting sustainable futures.