From Dispossession to Resurgence in the 21st Century

Landscape influences various areas of the Oceti Sakowin such as their history, community, spiritual belief, sovereignty and natural resources. However, their land, the center of who they are, continues to be affected by capitalistic methods of production. Because the American government possesses a capitalistic perception and production of land, it generates a repetitive cycle of dispossession, exploitation, and marginalization of Native Nations through the use of a capitalist mode of production. The connection Native tribes have to their land is the drive that propels them to resist against corporate and federal intrusion. This is seen in cases such as the opposition towards the Dakota Access pipeline, the reclaiming of the Black Hills, and the current objections of the Keystone XL pipeline. Dispossession, allotments, assimilation processes, federal policies, and land exploitation are the result of a capitalistic perception of land that continues to marginalize Indigenous Nations. For the purpose of this project, it focuses mainly on the connection between landscapes, dispossession and its outcomes, exploitation, prosthetic memory, and resurgence. This research observes how Landsberg’s prosthetic memory concept is used in Indigenous resurgence movements to gain support through the cinema and social media. Essentially, prosthetic memory is an asset in reestablishing an Indigenous based perspective of land and stop the repetitive cycle of the capitalistic production and view of land.