Fighting Invasive Infrastructures Indigenous Relations against Pipelines

• Published in: Environment and society Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 40 - 56
• Main Author: Spice, Anne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berghahn Journals 2018; Berghahn Books; Berghahn Books, Inc
• Subjects: Canada; Demonstrations and protests; Design and construction; Environmental aspects; Environmental degradation; Indigenous peoples-government relations; Pipeline construction; Pipelines; Political aspects; Canada; anthropology; pipelines; settler colonialism; Indigenous relations; infrastructure
• ISSN: 2150-6779; 2150-6787
• DOI: 10.3167/ares.2018.090104

In the settler colonial context of so-called Canada, oil and gas projects are contemporary infrastructures of invasion. This article tracks how the state discourse of “critical infrastructure” naturalizes the environmental destruction wrought by the oil and gas industry while criminalizing Indigenous resistance. I review anthropological work to analyze the applicability of the concept of infrastructure to Indigenous struggles against resource extraction. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Indigenous land defense movements against pipeline construction, I argue for an alternative approach to infrastructure that strengthens and supports the networks of human and other-than-human relations that continue to make survival possible for Indigenous peoples.