“Everything we do matters”: Contesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in rural Iowa through insurgent planning

Abstract

This in-depth case study examines the grassroots movement that coalesced between 2014–2019 to contest the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in Iowa. We investigate how Iowa organizers from the Bakken Pipeline Resistance Coalition, Mississippi Stand, and Little Creek Camp employed diverse actions to resist DAPL including participation in the Iowa Utilities Board permitting process, a legal challenge, protests, and sabotage. Drawing on data collection and fieldwork conducted between 2020–2023, we argue that the transgressive movement used insurgent planning to transform Iowa's energy landscape, provoking a strong response from the state including surveillance and a “Critical Infrastructure Bill”. We demonstrate that Iowa organizers traversed invited and invented spaces, creating a resistance toolbox used in contemporary energy contests. This case study unsettles the idea that organizers must work either within or outside state-led institutions to enact change; expands the geographical focus of insurgent planning; and uses an intersectional lens to make visible the work of women, Indigenous, and rural organizers in Iowa.