The politics of the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa: participation, resistance, and transformation

In 2016, the Indigenous-led movement at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota brought the crude oil-bearing Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) to national and international attention. Across the pipeline’s route in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois, DAPL pulled diverse actors into the anti-pipeline movement. This thesis focuses on resistance to DAPL in Iowa as a case study which analyzes formal participatory efforts through regulatory and legal means and informal mobilization aimed at stopping the pipeline in Iowa through grassroots organizing, direct action, non-violent civil disobedience, and sabotage. Drawing on 28 semistructured interviews and in-depth document analysis, this thesis explores how actors navigated divergent resistance strategies in Iowa and the state’s response to the anti-DAPL movement through the implementation of a “Critical Infrastructure Bill” (CIB) passed in 2018. This thesis identifies the crucial role of grassroots organizers working within, alongside, and outside formal participatory channels to resist DAPL and sustain the coalitional movement in Iowa. While unsuccessful at stopping the pipeline in Iowa, this thesis finds that the Iowa anti-DAPL movement created spaces of transformation, producing enduring effects, including new understandings of, and questions about, climate change, land, and justice.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Natural Res & Env Sciences

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Guske, Emily Lyn

Contributors dc:contributor

• Johnson, McKenzie F
• Novoa, Magdalena
• Jones, Jamie
• Beauchamp, Toby

• Energy
• Climate Justice
• Pipeline
• Oil
• Iowa
• Feminist Methods
• Insurgent Planning
• Participation

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Emily Guske

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121299

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F121299