Table of Contents

Contents

Preface: In Search of Treasure
Introduction: Sacrificial Land
1. Empty Except for Indians: Early Impressions of Navajo Rangeland
2. Prospecting for Magic Ore in America’s New Frontier
3. Cowboys and Indians in Navajo Country
4. Hot Spots: Justice, Power, and Gender in the Radioactive Present
5. Monsters and Mountains: Competing Geographies of Uranium
6. The Big Hurt: Boom and Bust on Contested Ground
Conclusion. Zombie Mines: The Future of Uranium and Native Sovereignty
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

About the Author

Traci Brynne Voyles is assistant professor of women's studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Reviews

"Wastelanding is simply a brilliant book. It is at once a beautifully written, rigorously researched and hauntingly moving account of U.S. settler colonialism’s violent making of racialized bodies and degraded landscapes in the U.S. Southwest. Traci Brynne Voyles draws together a rich set of critical approaches and weaves them into what will be the new bar for environmental politics."—Jake Kosek, University of California, Berkeley"This groundbreaking book examines how race, gender, and nature coproduce one another through ‘wastelanding.’ Voyles’ masterful account explains how colonization, racialization, and resource extraction work together to produce sacrifice zones. She connects history, geography, Native American Studies, ethnic studies, and women and gender studies in a truly unique contribution to the literature of environmental studies and environmental justice."—Julie Sze, University of California, Davis

"Wastelanding is meticulously researched, covers extremely complex events that continue to have dire consequences for Native peoples on the Colorado Plateau in a well-organized discourse, and draws on the work of dozens of other historians and professionals as well as a multitude of source documents."—Indian Country Today"There is a gap in geography in and around meaningfully engagements with Indigenous feminism. There is also a failure amongst radical scholars to place themselves within the landscapes they inhabit. This context of erasure makes Traci Brynne Voyles’ contribution all the more valuable and worthy of a thorough read."—Antipode"Thought-provoking and challenging."—Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher Education"Wastelanding is an often thought-provoking examination of settler colonialism’s impact on the Navajo people and their lands and should appeal to students of Native American history, geography, mining, gender studies, and the environment."—Western Historical Quarterly"Sophisticated and insightful."—Journal of American History"A timely and innovative work that applies a multitude of theoretical perspectives with remarkable elasticity to illuminate a critical instance of environmental injustice that is far from isolated."—The American Historical Review