The foundations of Glen Canyon Dam : infrastructures of dispossession on the Colorado Plateau / Erika Marie Bsumek.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bsumek, Erika Marie, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Settler colonialism--Colorado Plateau--History.

Settler colonialism.

Indians of North America--Colorado Plateau--Social conditions.

Indians of North America.

Indigenous people--Colorado Plateau--Social conditions.

Water resources development--Social aspects--Colorado Plateau--History.

Water resources development.

Glen Canyon Dam (Ariz.)--Social aspects--History.

Glen Canyon Dam (Ariz.).

Local Subjects:

Indigenous people--Colorado Plateau--Social conditions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (294 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, [2023]

Summary:

"The second highest concrete-arch dam in the United States, Glen Canyon Dam was built to control the flow of the Colorado River throughout the Western United States. Completed in 1966, the dam continues to serve as a water storage facility for residents, industries, and agricultural use across the American West and to generate hydroelectric power for residents in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and Nebraska. More than a massive piece of physical infrastructure and an engineering feat, the dam also exposes the cultural structures and complex regional power relations that both relied on Indigenous knowledge and labor while simultaneously dispossessing the Indigenous communities of their land and resources across the Colorado Plateau. Erika Marie Bsumek reorients the story of the dam to reveal a pattern of Indigenous erasure by weaving together the stories of religious settlers and Indigenous peoples, engineers and biologists, and politicians and spiritual leaders. Delving into the role that each of these groups played in the establishment of the Glen Canyon Dam exposes the dynamics of settler colonialism in the building of the dam as well as the layers of the ongoing, systematic dispossession of Indigenous people. Infrastructures of dispossession teach us that we cannot tell the stories of religious colonization, scientific exploration, regional engineering, environmental transformation, or political deal-making as disconnected from Indigenous history. The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam is a provocative and essential piece of modern history, particularly as water in the West becomes increasingly scarce and fights over access to it unfold"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: The Many Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam

Religious Expansion: Latter-day Settlers, Dispossession, and Indentured Servitude, 1840-1880

Instruments of Dispossession: The Influence of Science and Scholarship, 1869-1920

Structures of Erasure: Engineering, Education, and Ecology, 1910-1960

Political Maneuvering: Reclamation and Termination in Diné Bikéyah, 1947-1980

Legal Paradigms and Dispossession: Navajos, Environmentalists, and the Law, 1969-1980

Epilogue: Dispossession and Possession: The Continued Fight over Sacred Land and Water on the Colorado Plateau.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781477326589

1477326588

OCLC:

1344333338