Standing Rock Religion(s)
This article addresses emergent religious formations at protest scenes in the broader context of indigenous organization and identity-building. Our central example is the Standing Rock protest in North Dakota, 2016–2017, a local encampment-based event that quickly expanded into an international indi...
Authors: | ; |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Brill
2018
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In: |
Numen
Year: 2018, Volume: 65, Issue: 5/6, Pages: 499-530 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Standing Rock- Indianerreservation
/ Megalithic culture
/ Indians
/ Protest
/ Ethnic identity
/ Nature religion
/ Religious identity
|
Further subjects: | B
Standing Rock
protests
indigeneity
indigenous religion
ceremony
social media
music videos
|
Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) |
Summary: | This article addresses emergent religious formations at protest scenes in the broader context of indigenous organization and identity-building. Our central example is the Standing Rock protest in North Dakota, 2016–2017, a local encampment-based event that quickly expanded into an international indigenous peoples’ movement. We argue that religion was a key register in the camps, during direct actions, and in solidarity actions around the world, primarily expressed through a limited selection of key terms: water is sacred, water is life, Mother Earth, and ceremony. We argue, moreover, that these terms, and “ceremony” in particular, were a crucial medium of inter-group and up-scaled cultural translations, allowing local identities to come forth as a unified front. Invoking Standing Rock religion(s) as an instance of the broader category indigenous religion(s), we suggest that these identity formations belong to a globalizing indigenous religious formation, anchored in, yet distinct from, discrete indigenous religions, and today performed and mediated in diverse arenas, crisscrossing and connecting indigenous worlds. We are concerned with the translations and comparisons at play, and with the sentiments and moodiness of religion in this particular case, fueled by the cause (a planned pipeline on ancestral lands), the brutality of police encounters, and the sharing of ceremonies, food, and fires at the camps. |
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ISSN: | 1568-5276 |
Contains: | In: Numen
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685276-12341510 |