Tensions, Engagements, and Activisms Along The Pipeline Route:Tracing Resistance To Line 93 in Northern Minnesota

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology, Activism, and Protest", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Enbridge crude oil pipelines have been operational on Anishinaabe treaty lands in northern Minnesota for over 70 years, carrying oil from the Alberta tar sands to the Superior Terminal, Wisconsin. It was not until the replacement of Line 3 with the Line 93 pipeline in 2015 that large-scale social unrest was sparked. Indigenous and non-Indigenous Water Protectors joined together in civil disobedience to halt construction of Line 93 due to its violations of Indigenous sovereignty and its potential for environmental impacts. On October 1st, 2021, the replacement construction was finished; Line 3 was deactivated; the replacement Line 93 began transporting oil; and the resistance mostly subsided. In this paper, I explore the role of archaeology within this conflict as both a methodology for engaging with the materiality of oil infrastructure and as a stakeholder and ally of decolonial social movements through collected archaeological and ethnographic data along the pipeline route.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Archaeology, Activism, and Protest

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow