“Following Indigenous Leadership”: Addressing Power Inequalities between White and Indigenous Activists in the Movement to Stop Line 3

ABSTRACT Alliances across difference confer significant benefits to social movements and are among the most difficult coalitions to create and sustain over time. However, little coalition-building scholarship documents practices for acknowledging and ameliorating difference and inequality in social movements. Drawing on 24 interviews and more than four years of participant observation, I examine how the movement against the Line 3 pipeline worked to address inequalities across Indigenous-white lines of difference. The frame “follow Indigenous leadership” and accompanying practices encouraged activists to evaluate their privilege to determine the roles they should play; discouraged white domination of discussions, decision-making processes, and media coverage; and increased activists’ awareness of Indigenous political projects—in contrast to movements where privileged groups dominate leadership when joining in solidarity with a disadvantaged group. However, addressing inequalities is an ongoing process. Activists discussed questions and challenges around overly deferential behavior, intra-Indigenous heterogeneity, and tokenization. Few studies consider the tangible practices and processes involved in following those marginalized by intersecting oppressions, a goal of intersectional and climate justice movements. Movements such as these that aspire to cultivate justice within internal movement dynamics are on the rise, which makes studying the ongoing process of addressing inequalities in social movements increasingly important.