Denaturalizing Dispossession in the Political Ecology of the American West: Reassessing the History of the Los Angeles Aqueduct and Its Implications for Indigenous Land and Water Rights

Abstract

Indigenous dispossession has been left out or relegated to the historical background of much of the political ecology of the American West, naturalized as a precursor to natural resource policy rather than as a direct and ongoing consequence of it. This article offers a framework for denaturalizing dispossession, drawing on Indigenous and settler colonial studies to examine the specific legal, political, and territorial processes by which dispossession is produced and contested over time. This framework is used to examine the long-overlooked history of Indigenous dispossession wrought by the Los Angeles Aqueduct in the early twentieth century. In-depth archival, legal, and ethnographic research reveals how, in the 1930s, this history became obscured by naturalizing discourses that continue to be invoked in disputes over tribal land and water rights today. The study underscores the complex intersections of law, history, and justice in struggles over dispossession and highlights the need for more engagement on these issues from political ecologists of the American West.