Land Acknowledgement

STEPPING OUT & STEPPING UP: THE LAND-GRANT TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION PROJECT Stepping Out of Our Comfort Zone & Stepping Up to Our Responsibilities

As members of the local legal community, we are committed to recognizing and addressing the systemic injustices that exist for many of those we serve. We are dedicated, as always -- even during the pandemic -- to providing open and equal access to justice for all. Helping remove the structural bar

Some thoughts on Land Acknowledgements. Things to do, and things not to do.

Earlier this year, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) released a Territorial Acknowledgment Guide.[1] The territorial acknowledgements found in this guide vary from fairly short…

There's growing tension about the politics of territorial acknowledgements. Hayden King, an Anishinaabe writer and educator, spoke to Unreserved host Rosanna Deerchild about what they mean in today's political climate, and how they can be improved. Here's part of that conversation.

New statement honors valley’s original inhabitants, and recognizes their presence, spirit and history as being integral to UND

Statements recognizing indigenous rights to territories seized by colonial powers may be well-meaning. But some indigenous leaders fear these acknowledgements may become routine and performative.

Pima County Public Library has issued a formal statement acknowledging the Native peoples on whose lands the Library operates.

It's a tradition that has dated back centuries for Indigenous people, but for many non-Indigenous Canadians, officially recognizing the territory or lands we stand on is a fairly new concept that is a small but essential step towards reconciliation.

The following document offers the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) recommended territorial acknowledgement for institutions where our members work, organized by province. While most

Many of the nation’s universities were created with stolen wealth.

California College of the Arts educates students to shape culture and society through the practice and critical study of art, architecture, design, and writing. Benefitting from its San Francisco Bay Area location, the college prepares students for lifelong creative work by cultivating innovation, community engagement, and social and environmental responsibility.

The statement was assembled in consultation with leaders of the Tohono O'odham Nation and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and with Native American scholars at the university.

During the summer of 2019, Library staff members from various divisions collaborated on a reading circle around Indigenizing library instruction. This informal group continued into the fall of 2019, when we read sources focused more on politics prior to the federal election. The time and space offered participants a place to examine their practices and knowledge in a way that was supportive and safe. Based on the feedback, more informal learning and sharing was desired. One topic that was strongly requested was land acknowledgements, and how to authentically deliver them. Out of all this, the Decolonizing the Library Interest Group (DIG) was formed in late fall of 2019.

The ASU Library has crafted its first-ever Indigenous land acknowledgement — the beginning of a healing process and what many in the library see as a launch pad for deeper conversations about integrating and prioritizing Indigenous knowledge systems.

Land Acknowledgment Resources

After hosting an Indigenous land acknowledgment event, we put together this written guide to based on our panelists' responses.

From ASU Library: “The ASU Library acknowledges the 22 Native Nations that have inhabited this land for centuries.” Thus begins the Arizona State University Library’s first Indigenous land acknowledgement – a five-sentence, 116-word statement about the place that the library and the university have inhabited for more than a century. “The statement represents the ASU Library’s intentions […]

"Land Acknowledgements often begin academic conferences, cultural events, government press conferences, and even hockey games. They are supposed to be an act of Reconciliation between Indigenous people in Canada and non-Indigenous Canadians, but they have become so routine and formulaic that they have sometimes lost meaning. Seen more and more as empty words, some events have dropped Land Acknowledgements altogether. Me��tis artist and educator Suzanne Keeptwo wants to change that. She sees the Land Acknowledgement as an opportunity for Indigenous people in Canada to communicate their worldview to non-Indigenous Canadians--a worldview founded upon Age Old Wisdom about how to sustain the Land we all want to call home. For Keeptwo, the Land Acknowledgement is a way to teach and a way to learn: a living, evolving record of First Nation, Me��tis, and Inuit people in Canada and the Land that for millennia they held in pristine condition. As Keeptwo says: "Everything comes back to the Land--as our common denominator and most perfect unifier for Reconciliation." This is an indispensable guide to getting the contemporary Land Acknowledgement right."--

WHAT IS A LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT? A Land Acknowledgement is a formal statement that recognizes the unique and enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous Peoples and their traditional territories.

Thanks to Allison Jones and others for putting this together! Please note: this is NOT a perfect resource! It is very likely that if you do not do any further research or verify our results, you will err in your acknowledgements. We recommend contacting the nations you get in your results directly, to learn more about […]

A call to action and guide to open public events and gatherings with acknowledgment of the traditional Native inhabitants of the land. Acknowledgment is a simple, powerful way of showing respect and a step toward correcting the stories and practices that erase Indigenous people’s history and cultu