Summary of movement
From April 2016-February 2017 Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota held the largest gathering of indigenous nations in modern United States history. Tribal members and environmental activists gathered there in opposition to the route of a pipeline, called the Dakota Access pipeline, carrying oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota under the Missouri River half a mile north of Sioux lands. It became the largest Native American protest movement in living memory.
It is a recent example of indigenous resistance to ecological destruction, resource extraction, and political domination by the American state. More than an environmental stance, opposition to this pipeline is part of a decolonisation movement that aims to save Native American land from expropriation, their culture from appropriation, and their resources from exploitation. It is part of a larger civil rights movement for Native Americans.
The full text of this article has been moved to CenSAMM's open access Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements.
It is available at: https://www.cdamm.org/articles/standing-rock-sioux
