The Sociogenesis of Native American Social Inequality: How The 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline Protests Came To Be.

The 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) Protests sparked a change in American-Native American relationships and was one of the first times Native Americans had overwhelming support. This thesis explores the social processes which explain how the DAPL Protests came to be by using my own autobiographical data along with images, social media, official records/documents and my own research data. These are interrogated process sociologically which demonstrate how Native American social inequality was initiated, augmented and diminished between 1493 and today.

This thesis addresses the sociological problem of contemporary Native American social inequality highlighting how they exemplify America’s ever-changing complex and fluctuating relational dynamics. The sociogenesis of the USA has featured a domination that has become global. However, their domination was one part of a long-term process which constantly fluctuated between Native Americans, Europeans and Americans and this provides invaluable insights into how we got to the DAPL Protests.

This thesis contributes to sociology primarily through Elias’ works producing a sociogenetic exploration of American-Native American relationships documenting diachronic changes. It also enhances his works in the areas of gossip and data analysis. It is argued images, artwork, social media and traditional media perform similar functions to gossip as part of uneven power dynamics between groups. It also identifies how Native Americans and Americans quickly became interdependent but by allowing traditional European civilising processes, power chances shifted towards them and away from Native Americans.

The final section of this thesis emphasises the importance of all types of media in shifting power chances towards Native Americans which also provided international support; something which did not happen before the internet. The internet and social media have provided a new voice for people who traditionally experienced social inequality, enabling representation of views and experiences that differ from the controlling elite.