Resisting Dispossession

Illuminating the impacts of ongoing dispossession across the modern American Southwest Resisting Dispossession examines how Native/Indigenous, Chicana/o/x, and Black communities in the American Southwest have confronted displacement and dispossession from the nineteenth century to the present. Moving beyond abstract theory, Karen R. Roybal centers cultural expression and embodied knowledge, revealing how colonialism, preservation, urban renewal, and gentrification continue to shape relationships to land, place, and belonging. Drawing on Indigenous, Chicana feminist, and Black epistemologies, Roybal explores a diverse cultural archive of photographs, literature, musical compositions, oral histories, and storytelling practices. Through analyses of figures such as Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Raven Chacon, and Louis Carlos Bernal, alongside the stories of Chicana land grant heirs in New Mexico and southern Colorado, she demonstrates how artistic and cultural expression becomes a powerful tool for resisting erasure and reclaiming presence. Contesting representations of the Southwest made popular by figures like Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keeffe, these works preserve alternative histories, challenge dominant narratives, and illuminate the ongoing impacts of dispossession across the region. Interdisciplinary in scope, this work offers a fresh perspective on the intersections of aesthetics, embodiment, and power in the West and Southwest.