Indigenous Women, Social movements & Pipeline Resistance

The sources "The frontline of refusal: indigenous women
warriors of standing rock" and "Badass (Indigenous) Women Caretake
Relations: #NoDAPL, #IdleNoMore,#BlackLivesMatter" focus on the role of indegenous women in the fight for environmental justice. Native women stand at the front of environmental justice movements in protecting their ancestral land and preserving their culture. These sources highlight the movement at Standing Rock, a protest led to stop the development of the Dakota Access Pipeline through indigenous land. The Standing Rock movement encourages the development of more  Indigenous and women-led social and environmental movements. there are several other movements led by indigenous women or other women of color including Idle No More and Black Lives Matter movements. According to "The frontline of refusal: indigenous women
warriors of standing rock", water plays an extremely important part in reproductive, cultural, social,
and economic practices within Indigenous communities, the Dakota Access Pipeline would harm their land as well as their water sources. Despite the cultural significance of water in Standing Rock, the government persisted in their plans to go through with the pipeline.

The sources regarding the infringement of the rights of Indigenous peoples highlights the threat of greed and lack of empathy shown by the government's officials. The indigenous people have far more respect for the land, humans, and non-human living organisms than industries or the U.S government ever could. The fact that the people indigenous to the land have to fight to protect land that they rightfully own, shows the extent of power that white colonialism has in the U.S.  They do not care about the cultural significance of their land or the harm that they are causing to the Earth and its people as long as they receive money.


VOCAB
-settler-colonialism: a form of colonialism that functions through the replacement of indigenous populations with an invasive settler society that eventually takes over.
-Privatization: the act of transferring an industry from the public sector to the private sector. 
- Vignette: ( in the article's context) a brief description, account, or episode of  a thought or emotion evoking moment