The Meaning of Standing Rock: On Imperialism, Indigeneity, Industrialization, and Imagination

[GPQ 42 (Winter-Spring 2022):147–157] a place: the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, home to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Interrupting the border between North and South Dakota, its communities are mostly Lakota (Hunkpapa) and Dakota (Yanktonai) speakers. One of the Ihanktowanna communities is Cannon Ball, the northernmost community. It is not far from there that “Standing Rock” originated in 2016. Apart from its real presence in camps on and off the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, “Standing Rock” existed mostly, however, in cyberspace. This community reached out through social media and the internet, and eventually spanned the globe. As it expanded, it also changed. Many people who stood with Standing Rock had never heard of the actual place. Standing Rock became a feeling, a statement in its own right, a symbol, a manifesto. The reason for all the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at this point was the Corps of Engineers’ responsibility to issue a permit for the pipeline to cross the Missouri River, now Lake Oahe. Since 2016, articles and books have been written, documentaries screened, and lawsuits filed over the meaning of Standing Rock. Here, I will discuss four of these books. Katherine Wiltenburg Todrys’s Black Snake depicts the events surrounding the protests Book Review Essay