WS 375

Rubric for Queer Ecologies Final Paper: 5-7 pp. 10 points total

-Brief description of elements of case (3 points). You need to be selective here as these are
complex cases. Do not assume the reader knows about the case and its background. Introduce the
case in a way that gives the reader a sense of the general issue, then highlight the elements that
you are going to be working with in your analysis.

-Queer analysis, using 2-3 theories from class. How a queer lens offers a new way to view this
case (5 points). This is the bulk of the paper. What theoretical frames are you using to analyze
the case? (again, you’ll need to give brief description of what the theory, or part of the theory,
you’re using offers). Then link it to specific part of the case. HOW does this case illustrate the
theory? WHAT does the theory offer to understand deeper issues at play? WHAT can we learn
from applying this theoretical lens to the problem?

-Writing quality and organization (2 points). The paper needs to be well organized. If you use the
template I hand out, that should help. Think about structuring each paragraph and ask yourself
what it contributes, how the paper flows together. Try to spell-check and use clear grammar. The
paper must be clear and well organized.

readings:
• Eli Clare, Exile and Pride (land, bodies)
p. 67-68
“This means that white people who want to save old growth forests, preserve watersheds,
maintain biodiversity have a different relationship to the struggle than do people of color.
different from Native peoples., whose genocide has been and still intimately connected to
environmental destruction; different from African Americans and Latinos and Asian Americans,
who, along with Native peoples, often do the dirty work of environmental degradation- whether
it be digging uranium, cleaning up toxic waste, drilling for oil, or harvesting pesticide-laden
foods– who often live with the consequences in their own backyards.”

“different theorizations of reproduction, futurity, and their coalescence at the site of the family”

(Bliss, p. 84).

“Native traditions can allow Native communities to remember their nations as not necessarily

structured through hierarchy, oppression, or patriarchy” (Smith, p. 50)

“understand indigenous nationhood as already queered” (p. 54)

“The everydayness of settler domestic life occurs in places whose availability for such

inhabitance depends upon the suspension of Native ‘rights’” (Rifkin, p. 2)

“ the ways the exertion of authority by the state operates as an ongoing process” (p. 11)

issues: DAPL/Standing Rock

• water, “water is life,” groundwater contamination, water hoses as oppression
• energy, corporatization
• feminist issues/reproductive justice, futurity, elders/children
• borders/settler colonialism, land, “the State”, control of information
• queer of color/indigenous studies
treatment of activists
 References (strikethrough = actually used in paper)

Bliss, James. (2015). Hope Against Hope: Queer Negativity, Black Feminist Theorizing, and

Reproduction without Futurity. Mosaic: a journal for the interdisciplinary study of

literature, 48 (1), 83-98. https://doi.org/10.1353/mos.2015.0007

Clare, Eli. (2009). Exile & Pride: Disability, Queerness & Liberation (Rev. ed.). Cambridge,

MA: South End Press.

Donnella, Leah (2016, November 22). The Standing Rock Resistance Is Unprecedented (It's Also

Centuries Old). NPR: Code Switch. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/

codeswitch/2016/11/22/502068751/the-standing-rock-resistance-is-unprecedented-it-s-

also-centuries-old

Elbein, Saul (2017, January 31). The Youth Group That Launched a Movement at Standing

Rock. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://nyti.ms/2jQjK7O

Faith, Mike, Jr. (2019, March 11). Chairman Mike Faith, Jr., Standing Rock Sioux Tribe: Press

Release. Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. https://www.standingrock.org/content/chairman-

mike-faith-jr-standing-rock-sioux-tribe

Grossman, David (2017, January 24). The Dakota Pipeline Controversy Explained. Popular

Mechanics. Retrieved from https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/

infrastructure/a23658/dakota-pipeline-protests/

Houska, Tara. (2016, August 11). Native American Youth to Obama: ‘Rezpect’ Our Water.

Indian Country Today. Retrieved from https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/

archive/native-american-youth-to-obama-rezpect-our-water-Sl0_ehP_YkuO_qJ0VyZirg/

Rain Yellowhammer, Anna Lee. (2016, June 16). The Oil Industry Needs to #RezpectOurWater

and Stop Building the Dakota Access Pipeline. Mic. Retrieved from https://mic.com/
 articles/146308/the-oil-industry-needs-to-rezpect-our-water-and-stop-building-the-

dakota-access-pipeline#.hxUu4a8JA

Rifkin, Mark. (2014). Ordinary Life and the Ethics of Occupation. In Settler Common Sense:

Queerness and Everyday Colonialism in the American Renaissance (chapter 1).

Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/lib/psu/

detail.action?docID=1701708.

Smith, Andrea. (2010). Queer Theory and Native Studies: The Heteronormativity of Settler

Colonialism. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian & Gay Studies, 16(1/2), 41–68. https://doi-org /

10.1215/10642684-2009-012

Sundeen, Mark (2016, September 2). What’s Happening in Standing Rock?. Outside. Retrieved

from https://www.outsideonline.com/2111206/whats-happening-standing-rock

Zambelich, Ariel & Alexandra, Cassi. (2016, December 11). In Their Own Words: The 'Water

Protectors' Of Standing Rock. NPR. Retrieved from

https://www.npr.org/2016/12/11/505147166/in-their-own-words-the-water-protectors-of-

standing-rock