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Ecological Restoration or Healing?: Conflicting Ontologies and Missed Opportunities in Public Debates Surrounding Mississippi River Gorge Restoration

ABSTRACT This article describes an instance of public debate about the proposed dam and lock removals along the Upper Mississippi River Gorge in Minnesota, showing ways that environmental controversy plays out in settler colonial and Indigenous publics, attending to who and what gets heard and valued in public debate about potential river restoration. Importantly, this essay attends to ontological incommensurability that may exist between Indigenous and non-Indigenous publics in public debates about the environment. I ultimately argue that in settler colonial contexts, Indigenous ontologies - storied realities and experiences that are emergent in practice - in relation with the river cannot be heard by settler colonial publics because they fundamentally challenge settlers' ontological claims to land and water as resource for their exclusive use. Such claims are rooted in colonial violence that contribute to destruction of ecosystems. This essay shows, however, that Indigenous individuals and communities continue to create unique realities with story and visual art to exert presence in the face of settler attempts of erasure, and it shows how better understanding of political ontologies allows for more thorough and ethical engagement when controversies about land and water arise in public debate.