Dissertation
A Cultivated Territory: The Columbia Valley and the Rhetorical Construction of Place
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2022
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000004365
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/124723
Abstract
After the introduction of wide-spread commercial cultivation of European wine grapes, Vitis vinifera, to the Columbia Valley in the 1960s, the state has incrementally embraced an identity as a wine region, striving to produce wine in the league with those produced in Napa Valley, California, or Bordeaux, France. Like those famous regions, most of the vineyards in Washington state are grown under a denomination of origin, predominately the Columbia Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA). This legally designated agricultural area spans the majority of Washington state, covering a vast swath of land east of the Cascade mountain range, flanking the Columbia River. The creation of this wine region follows old stories of wine cultivation and consumption, as well as international trade habits of the Global North. In this dissertation, I explore the creation of the Columbia Valley American Viticultural Area as a story of ongoing rhetorical encounters that take place in the land surrounding the Columbia River, in order to describe settler place-making practices and the anti-colonial efforts that resist those actions. I explore how the region’s rhetorical and material construction furthered the colonial project through the installment and naturalization of white settler presence in the Columbia Valley. The impositions of Western epistemologies of place sought to erase Indigenous sovereignty and replace reciprocal land relationships with extractive practices. Following Audra Simpson, I argue that the establishment of this region represents incomplete and unsuccessful colonization, that these colonial efforts have been and continue to be resisted and refused. At the heart of this work are questions of what land is to humans, who has the power to define those relationships, and how land becomes place through these narratives. The story of how we can and should relate to the earth is an essential part of how we understand place and our place within the world. The broad goal of this work is to untangle how the Columbia Valley was symbolically formed as a means to re-assemble the lands, waters, and peoples within a colonial relational scheme.
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Details
- Title
- A Cultivated Territory
- Creators
- Chanelle Fournier
- Contributors
- Kimberly Christen (Advisor)Ashley Boyd (Committee Member)Julie Staggers (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- English, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 247
- Identifiers
- 99900883038801842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation