What question did this study set out to answer?

To examine the historical and contemporary Indigenous resistance against settler colonialism and extractive industries in the Americas.

March 4, 2026Open Access

Earth-Making Resistance in a World on Fire

Key Points

To examine the historical and contemporary Indigenous resistance against settler colonialism and extractive industries in the Americas.
Analysis of the #NODAPL movement and its historical context.
Examination of Indigenous activism strategies, including pipeline takeovers and blockades.
Evaluation of the state's response to such activism, particularly violence and criminalization.
The #NODAPL movement signifies a continuation of over 500 years of Indigenous resistance.
Indigenous activism includes various strategies aimed at halting extractive practices.
The state response has involved increased violence against activists, highlighting the risks of such resistance.

Abstract

I begin where Temin’s book does, with the #NODAPL movement. The movement emerged in 2016 as Standing Rock Sioux citizens organized to stop the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) across their ancestral lands. As Sioux scholar-activist Nick Estes argues, the #NODAPL movement is part of a longer history of Indigenous resistance to settler colonialism in the US. 1 It is also part of a history of 500 years of Indigenous resistance in the Americas/Abya Yala, one that has intensified with the contemporary expansion of extractive industries. Indigenous resistance in extractive hot zones such as the Amazon has in recent years included pipeline takeovers, blockades, and legal activism to halt land concessions to companies by the state. The response to this activism has been increased violence against protesters and their criminalization. 2

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