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Unsettling Indian Water Settlements: The Little Colorado River, the San Juan River, and Colonial Enclosures
Author(s) -
Curley Andrew
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/anti.12535
Subject(s) - indigenous , human settlement , colonialism , settlement (finance) , indigenous rights , politics , geography , political science , law , archaeology , ecology , business , finance , payment , biology
In the United States, indigenous nations are settling water claims for access to the continent's surface waters. This legal‐political process transforms the nature of indigenous water use to conform with logics of quantification that are foundational to western water laws. This article critiques Indian water settlements by highlighting the inherent limitations and marginalisation of indigenous water rights in two recent examples of water settlements, the Little Colorado River Water Settlement in 2012 and the San Juan River Water Settlement in 2005. This article argues that Indian water settlements are forms of colonial enclosures, built on a lineages of law that replicates and perpetuates settler‐colonial dispossession. These settlements enclose upon unquantified Indigenous rights in the interest of colonial‐capitalist expansion in the western states.