This Land is Our Land

Protesting to Protect Places on the Margin

Bibliographic Data

ID21192525
AuthorsMegan O’Byrne (Kutztown University, corresponding author), Danielle Endres (0000-0002-6532-2524, University of Utah)
Year2021
Volume15
Issue7
Pages887-903
Publication date2021-10-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1752-4032 • E-ISSN: 1752-4040
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17524032.2021.1911824
OpenAlexW3156860081
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited32

In 2008 Tim DeChristopher illegally bid on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) parcels offered for energy exploration leases near National Parks in Utah. DeChristopher and his supporters founded Peaceful Uprising, a climate justice movement, in response to his actions. We analyze mediated news coverage and in situ rhetoric gathered via rhetorical fieldwork to examine the ways that Peaceful Uprising combined place-based rhetoric and place-as rhetoric tactics to protect these park-adjacent lands from oil and gas leases and to protect DeChristopher from being convicted for making false bids on the leases. This analysis offers a unique example of place-based protest that is focused on otherwise ignored BLM lands. Moreover, we focus on a place—Salt Lake City—that is not conventionally perceived as a bastion of activism and protest about climate change. Our analysis expands the place in protest framework to considerations of: 1) the convergence of the place-based and place-as rhetoric tactics, and 2) the potential of place in protest appeals to enact different futurities

Economic growth · Economic Justice · Economics · Political science · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Sociology · American Environmental and Regional History · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Public Administration · Rhetoric and Communication Studies