PIPELINE POPULISM

How contemporary environmental struggles and resistance to pipeline development became populist struggles Stunning Indigenous resistance to the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access pipelines has made global headlines in recent years Less remarked on are the crucial populist movements that have also played a vital role in pipeline resistance Kai Bosworth explores the influence of populism on environmentalist politics which sought to bring together Indigenous water protectors and environmental activists along with farmers and ranchers in opposition to pipeline construction Here Bosworth argues that populism is shaped by the affective infrastructures emerging from shifts in regional economies democratic public review processes and scientific controversies With this lens he investigates how these movements wax and wane moving toward or away from other forms of environmental and political ideologies in the Upper Midwest This lens also lets Bosworth place populist social movements in the critical geographical contexts of racial inequality nationalist sentiments ongoing settler colonialism and global empire crucial topics when grappling with the tensions embedded in our era s immense environmental struggles Pipeline Populism reveals the complex role populism has