Land Acknowledgements

[stormdog]

The trend of beginning events by acknowledging the people from whom the land they are on was stolen has bothered me almost since I first became aware of it. This piece, drawing on thoughts of native people and anthropologists, does a good job at explaining why.

Discussing what kind of land acknowledgements would *not* be harmful, the authors write "What many Indigenous persons want from a land acknowledgment is, first, a clear statement that the land needs to be restored to the Indigenous nation or nations that previously had sovereignty over the land."

I'll give you one guess at how likely that is to happen. And without it, land acknowledgements feel, both to me and to some native people whose opinions matter *far* more than mine do, like saying "We're not giving your land back, but we are sorry about all that genocide and land theft. We're cool now, right?"

https://theconversation.com/land-acknowledgments-meant-to-honor-indigenous-people-too-often-do-the-opposite-erasing-american-indians-and-sanitizing-history-instead-163787?fbclid=IwAR12-KNbMGOsn518ReQH2qmEcTEUsGwrLr_ZnTFeOClb-VglnIXqiKwarNA

Comments

[armiphlage]

Agreed.

[sabotabby]

Related: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/redrawing-the-lines-1.4973363/i-regret-it-hayden-king-on-writing-ryerson-university-s-territorial-acknowledgement-1.4973371

I explain it as if I take your water bottle and say, "oh yes, this is yours" but don't give it back, I'm not doing anything by the gesture.

[stormdog]

I've seen emails, as an example, for a long time now that have something in the signature about what native people used to own and manage the land that the writer is on, and it's just annoying. I want to write them back and say "Ok, so? What are you doing about it? Anything?"

[sabotabby]

Admittedly I do that, but in my context it's very much a provocation.