“TIED TO THE LAND”: PIPELINES, PLAINS AND PLACE ATTACHMENT

ABSTRACT

Since first proposed, the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines have been extensively covered by the media, shaping readers’ perceptions of the pipelines, as well as perceptions of the places and peoples impacted by them. Using critical discourse analysis, this paper examines the media coverage, their Plains descriptions, and expressions of place attachment. Through the media’s use of “place talk,” it presents a hybrid Plains: placeless, yet with a strongly place-attached population who are “tied to the land.” As conflicts over environmental and energy projects become increasingly contentious, place and place attachment are important for understanding the conflicts and potentially mobilizing resistance.

Keywords::

• climate change
• discourse analysis
• Great Plains
• pipelines
• place attachment
• water

Notes

¹ “XL” stands for Export Limited. The southern Keystone XL leg from Cushing, Oklahoma to Texas refineries was completed in 2010.

² DAPL protest sites were far from cities and resources: camps provided food and shelter for the protesters.

³ Plains-set articles are in contrast to those that are set in Washington, D.C. (protests, hearings), or that deal abstractly with financial aspects. “Straight news” is a plain account of news facts, without exaggeration. Feature articles are a compelling news narrative. Editorials and opinion pieces are written from a particular perspective, often persuasively, and were excluded.

⁴ All the articles on the pipelines published during this period were not collected. This is an extensive sample. All media sources have their ideological standpoints and attempts were made to balance sources for a representative sample.

⁵ The author was the sole coder and analyzer of the articles. The value of multiple coders to content analysis is acknowledged (Erlingsson and Brysiewicz 2017, 98). As the intent was a qualitative analysis, using the content analysis only to get a sense of the “big picture,” having a single coder was viewed as acceptable.

⁶ Also called the Battle of Little Big Horn or of Greasy Grass, the 1876 battle was a decisive victory for the tribes, defeating the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the U.S. Army and killing its leader, George Armstrong Custer (White 1991, 104 and 622-3).

⁷ The Great Sioux Nation is composed of Seven Council Fires or tribes, subdivided into 18 bands, including the Hunkpapa of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation (Estes 2019, 69-70).