Land acknowledgments have become increasingly common nationwide over the past few years. Many mainstream public events — from soccer games and performing arts productions to city council meetings and corporate conferences — begin with these formal statements recognizing Indigenous communities’ rights to territories seized by colonial powers.
Indigenous leaders and activists have mixed feelings about land acknowledgments. While some say they are a waste of time, others are working to make the well-meaning but often empty speeches more useful. The debate is more than a niche issue; the pros and cons of land acknowledgments are the subject of myriad mainstream media articles, social media posts and online videos. And they’ve even been parodied on TV, in series like Reservation Dogs, about the exploits of a group of Oklahoma Indigenous teens.
In one ear and out the other
“If it becomes routine, or worse yet, is strictly performative, then it has no meaning at all,” said Kevin Gover, a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and undersecretary for museums and culture at the Smithsonian Institution. “It goes in one ear and out the other.” (Gover said only one or two Smithsonian museums have land acknowledgments; the National Museum of the American Indian is among those that do, and its acknowledgment is only one sentence long.)
Gover said the statements — which first appeared in Australia back in the 1970s in the push for Aboriginal peoples’ rights and more recently blossomed in Canada with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, which brought to light how generations of Indigenous schoolchildren had been stripped of their native languages and cultural traditions — can also feel disempowering to the very people they’re supposed to uplift.
“If I hear a land acknowledgment, part of what I’m hearing is, ‘There used to be Indians here. But now they’re gone. Isn’t that a shame?’ And I don’t wish to be made to feel that way,” Gover said.
The statement above shows how actually insignificant land acknowledges came to be when some are so unserious, and lack luster in what they are trying to achieve.
But other Indigenous experts say land acknowledgments do have value. If people are thinking about how they go about crafting and using these statements, they can provide a first step toward action.
Land acknowledgment to me is just part of the topic that I’m investigating in my research. I want to see how it can be a catalyst in adding more to these ongoing conversations about tangible ways the Native American community can receive their reparations as well.
“The land acknowledgment gets you to that start,” said Cutcha Risling Baldy, a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe and an associate professor of Native American Studies at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. “Now it’s time to think about what that actually means for you or your institution. What are the concrete actions you’re gonna take? What are the ways you’re gonna assist Indigenous peoples in uplifting and upholding their sovereignty and self-determination?”
I spoke to Ty Smith from The Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio and he told me something similar to the statements above. He said the problem with land acknowledgements is how they get this bad wrap and tribes don’t tend to appreciate them because of the performative nature to them. It’s not just about putting money into the equation to right the wrongs done to Native Americans, but also helping in their effort to preserve their culture and history. There and ways of doing this instead of reading a statement off a piece of paper.
Source: Veltman, C. (2023, March 15). So you began your event with an Indigenous land acknowledgment. Now what? NPR. https://www.npr.org/2023/03/15/1160204144/indigenous-land-acknowledgments
