Social Media and the Warrior Women Water Protectors
March 23, 2018 at the New Museum
This conversation will address the role of social media in the movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline and its ongoing role in the way the struggle is litigated and remembered. In stark contrast with the American Indian Movement’s openly antagonistic relationship with the mainstream press in the 1970s, the Standing Rock organizers struggled to communicate an accountable and reflective message as thousands of independent media makers, armed with smartphones and social media accounts, rushed to join the cause.
More broadly, Facebook has emerged as the go-to organizing tool for Native activists, but it also platforms abuse, dysfunction, and distortion. What kind of ethical engagement with social media is possible in Native communities that have been deeply disrupted by internalized colonization?
Elizabeth Castle
Scholar and activist
Marcella Gilbert
Nutritionist and community organizer
Madonna Thunder Hawk
Co-founder, Women of All Red Nations Organizer, American Indian Movement and Standing Rock encampment
Grandmother to a generation of activists
