Tell, DaveSmith, Joshua2024-11-252024-11-252022-08-312022http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:18438https://hdl.handle.net/1808/35693This dissertation examines the rhetoric of public lands through three case studies related to Bears Ears National Monument (BENM). I argue that a central part of what makes public lands rhetorical are the relationships that people have with the lands, or the experiences, interactions, and meanings that they associate with the land. Chapter Two examines how relationship to land affected the debates over the Utah Public Lands Initiative (PLI), an important precursor to the monument, and the role of three key terms––wilderness, compromise, and certainty––in the debates over the PLI. Chapter Three examines three versions of the monument and argues that the relationships of five Native American Tribes to the land can be precisely calibrated to the size of the monument’s boundaries. Chapter Four argues that a way that settler colonialism operates rhetorically is by subsuming Indigenous relationships to land under settler relationships.179 pagesenCopyright held by the author.RhetoricBears Ears National MonumentEnvironmental RhetoricNative American RhetoricPublic AddressPublic LandsSettler ColonialismDissertation0000-0001-6299-2437