Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE December 2015 "WE'D ALWAYS RETURN TO THIS CENTER:" UNDERSTANDING URBAN SPACE AS A DAKOTA PLACE IN MNI SOTA MAKOCE Kelsey Marie Carlson Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Carlson, Kelsey Marie, ""WE'D ALWAYS RETURN TO THIS CENTER:" UNDERSTANDING URBAN SPACE AS A DAKOTA PLACE IN MNI SOTA MAKOCE" (2015). Dissertations - ALL. 362. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/362 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Abstract This thesis intends to bring to popular consciousness the historical and ongoing injustices committed against Indigenous peoples by sharing the knowledges and experiences of a number of Dakota people in Minnesota. Part landscape analysis, part ethnography, and by most substantially relying on narrative and lengthy excerpts from interviews, I challenge the dominant notion that Minnesota is a non-Native space. Rather, Mni Sota Makoce, the land where the waters reflect the sky, with a place called Bdote at its center, forms the traditional territory of the Dakota Oyate, the Dakota Nation. More specifically, this thesis tells a story about Dakota peoples’ struggle to maintain and assert their relationships to urban public spaces in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Region as indisputably Dakota places. “WE’D ALWAYS RETURN TO THIS CENTER:” UNDERSTANDING URBAN SPACE AS A DAKOTA PLACE IN MNI SOTA MAKOCE by Kelsey M.