Learning towards decolonising relationships at standing rock

Abstract

The opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline that took place at Standing Rock in North Dakota was the largest gathering of Indigenous Peoples in recent U.S. history. Thousands of people, Indigenous and otherwise, came together from across North America and beyond to protect waters and sacred sites threatened by the construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline. Our study examined the learning of Canada-based pipeline activists who travelled to Standing Rock to support the opposition. In this paper, we argue that participating in the Standing Rock resistance camp was an experience rich in informal learning and education for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants, and that this learning might be best understood as learning towards decolonising relationships. Building from the theoretical concepts of respect, responsibility, reciprocity, and relationship as the overarching umbrella, we outline three types of relationships central to how Standing Rock activists learned within the resistance camp: relationships to people, to community, and to self. A focus on these relationships – and the centrality of respect, responsibility, and reciprocity to them – provides insight into how the resistance community created opportunities for participants to start to unlearn settler-colonialism, and learn towards a decolonising relationality.