Competing Worldviews at Mato Tipila
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University of Denver Digital Commons @ DU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 1-1-2018 No Common Ground: Competing Worldviews at Mato Tipila Wendy Anne Felese University of Denver Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd Part of the Comparative Methodologies and Theories Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, and the Land Use Law Commons Recommended Citation Felese, Wendy Anne, "No Common Ground: Competing Worldviews at Mato Tipila" (2018). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1519. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1519 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. No Common Ground: Competing Worldviews at Mato Tipila ____________ A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the University of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology Joint PhD Program University of Denver ____________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy ____________ by Wendy A. Felese November 2018 Advisor: Dr. Richard Clemmer-Smith Author: Wendy A. Felese Title: No Common Ground: Competing Worldviews at Mato Tipila Advisor: Dr. Richard Clemmer-Smith Degree Date: Novmber 2018 ABSTRACT This project analyzes a legal conflict (Bear Lodge Multiple Use Assn v Babbitt 2 F. Supp. 2d 1448) at Mato Tipila, a significant place for the Lakota (Sioux) community and with which they have a historical and longstanding relationship. Commercial and recreational rock-climbing enthusiasts who make use of it and the tourists who arrive in droves each year to visit, call this place Devils Tower. The case centered on whether the government violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by instituting a climbing ban during the month of June to accommodate Lakota ceremonial obligations. In recent historical developments, the conflict has been exclusively, and thus ineffectively, adjudicated through the eurochristian – albeit secularized – discourse of “rights.” The cognitional categories used to define rights with respect to both natives and non-natives at this place are rooted in eurochristian culture and are for that reason inadequate to encompass the diversity of commitments at stake. The current state of human rights theory is deeply rooted in categories of possessive individualism and other related concepts that are alien to Lakota understandings of relationship and obligations at Mato Tipila. Using cognitive theory, I investigate the radical alterity that underscores ongoing tensions at this site. A plan implemented by the National Park Service to promote “shared use” by different communities is inadequate. Framing the court case exclusively in terms of ii religious rights forces all participants to assimilate and articulate their positions in a constrained way that privileges a dominant way-of-being that is not only antithetical to the concerns of Native communities but has been imposed on Indigenous peoples since the 15th century. At the heart of the conflict is an incommensurability, demonstrated by clashing perceptions about what this site means and how humans understand their relationship with it. Those with power to decide the outcomes on contested lands misconstrue that reality. Most importantly, I argue that the framework around accommodation and shared use profoundly disrupts Lakota memory and tradition even as it mobilizes the discourse of inclusion. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people offered wisdom, guidance, suggestions, critique, and a valuable listening ear. They are too numerous to name; know that my gratitude is immense. My deepest appreciation I offer to my friends in South Dakota. I would also like to thank Richard Clemmer-Smith for his decade-long support and commitment, especially during the periods when I lost my way or doubted. Thank you for seeing this through. Thank you to my children, Jordan, Olivia, and Elena. Through years of graduate school and the creation of this project, you cheerfully accompanied me on research trips, and have been unfailingly patient, supportive, and understanding. Thank you, Patrick, for walking with me through graduate school, this project, and our life together, and for helping me think critically and convey my ideas clearly. I will always be learning from you. Thank you, Mom, for offering me a quiet place to write, for handing me mug after mug of steaming coffee, and for perusing my documents with thorough care. Thank you, Dad, Ann, and Mary Pat, for your help and encouragement and for coming through in the clutch. Thank you, Alex. My respect and gratitude to Ved Nanda, for the integrity, patience, and care with which you guided me. I will always be grateful. Thank you, Antony Alumkal, for your willingness to help and guide me twice, once during the master’s program, and in this final stage. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One ................................................................................................................. 1 Preface ............................................................................................................. 1 Chapter Two ...............................................................................................................19 Introduction .....................................................................................................19 Recognition .....................................................................................................19 Talking Past Each Other ...................................................................................32 Introduction to Theory and Rights ....................................................................35 Why the FCMP Fails........................................................................................38 Chapter Three .............................................................................................................52 Changes of an Expanding People ......................................................................52 No Common Ground........................................................................................56 Universal Right ................................................................................................65 Rights of Redemption.......................................................................................73 Separated From History....................................................................................83 Black Hills, White Justice ................................................................................90 Dispossessing Wilderness.................................................................................92 Wakan: People and Place ............................................................................... 104 Worldview and Rights.................................................................................... 106 Chapter Four ............................................................................................................. 117 We ought to ask ourselves how this happens. And, yes. Who tells the stories?.. 117 The Land and Its Original Inhabitants ............................................................. 129 When We Speak Lakota There is a Different Way of Thinking ........................ 133 The Chosen People/Promised Land Cognitive Model ...................................... 138 We Are What We Imagine.............................................................................. 139 Difference, Not Diversity ............................................................................... 151 Discussion ..................................................................................................... 155 Mato Tipila (Target Domain).......................................................................... 157 Tunkasila ....................................................................................................... 168 Grounded Normativity ................................................................................... 172 Chapter Five ............................................................................................................. 176 Part One: Impermissible Entanglement ........................................................... 181 Part Two: Peddling Dilemmas ........................................................................ 194 Part Three: The White Man’s Spirit Land Is Nowhere. .................................... 225 Part Four: Pachamama Means “The Truth” ..................................................... 233 Embodied Mind ............................................................................................. 236 Chapter Six ............................................................................................................... 239 v Conclusion..................................................................................................... 239 Race, Reversal, and Reorientation .................................................................. 239 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 252 Appendix .................................................................................................................. 278 Judicial Documents .......................................................................................