Land Acknowledgement Poem | Indigenous People’s Wellbeing

This poem and related invitations were collaboratively created by a group of Indigenous (FNMI) colleagues who were concerned about the ways Land Acknowledgements have been mobilized in educational and professional settings to once again invisibilize the violence of colonialism and the suffering of Indigenous Peoples under existing colonial systems. Collaborators: Cash Ahenakew (Ahtahkakoop Nation), Chaa’winisaks (Nuu-chah-nulth, Cheklesaht/Kyuquot and Tla-o-qui-aht), Sisamia, Dani Pigeau (Stō:lo), Christine Stweart Galxa (Nisga’a), Halth-Leah, Kayah George (Tulalip and Tsleil-Waututh Nations), Lauren Jerke (Métis, Polish, Irish), Gail Stromquist (Spuzzum).

INVITATION TO DIFFERENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It has become common in what is known as Canada today, to hear land acknowledgements by non-Indigenous people that include sentences like “It is my pleasure and privilege to live, work and play in this territory.” As Indigenous (FNMI) peoples, we find this unsettling and have created this poem in response. We aim to draw attention to how these land acknowledgements often center the experiences, emotions, and future of non-Indigenous people who reside on stolen Indigenous lands.

While we understand the good intentions implied in statements like this, it is also important to notice how both settler “pleasure and privilege” are implicated in historical and ongoing systemic violence against Indigenous peoples, and the Land itself. Settler-colonialism and the presence of settlers have deprived Indigenous peoples of the very “pleasure and privilege” to live, work, and play on their own Lands.

This poem invites non-Indigenous readers, or settlers, to engage in two key actions:

1) To recognize the Land as a sacred, living entity from which we all originate—a being to which we are inherently connected and relationally accountable to.

2) To acknowledge the intentional complicity of settler systems in genocide and ecocide as the basis for assuming responsibilities towards the Land and Indigenous peoples. Without acknowledging settler accountability and responsibility, statements regarding the pleasure and privilege of settlers can inadvertently echo the sentiment captured in the poem’s title: “Thank you for the real estate.”

Engaging with the poem may evoke challenging and uncomfortable emotions, and we encourage you to observe and reflect upon these responses as you read. Following the poem, we provide debrief questions to facilitate further exploration of your own reactions. We also offer resources for additional reading on Indigenous perspectives related to this matter.

POEM: BEYOND “THANK YOU FOR THE REAL ESTATE”

When you acknowledge the Land
Please centre those who have not
Forgotten its sacredness
And who have paid a high price
For honouring their obligations towards it

We ask you to take a moment to remember
The genocides and ecocides
That have happened on the Land and to the people of the Land
So that you could have “the pleasure and privilege”
To live, love, work and play on stolen Indigenous Lands

We don’t want you to feel shame or guilt for being a settler
We invite you to feel motivated and responsible
For interrupting ongoing harm and continuous violence
Towards the Land, towards Indigenous peoples
Towards your own body, which is also Land

We ask you to use the platforms available to you
to advance DRIPA, UNDRIP, the TRC Calls to Action,
and Section 35 of the Constitution,
that upholds our inherent rights of
self-governance and of meaningful consultation
about what happens in Indigenous territories

We ask you to affirm your responsibilities towards
The #LandBack movement,
The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit people (#MMIWG2S)
And the suffering of the families and communities whose children lie
In unmarked graves on residential school sites

We ask you to notice and to interrupt
The effects of colonial violence on Indigenous bodies
Tirelessly experiencing racism in healthcare, in education,
in their places of employment, in courtrooms, in prisons,
And while doing basic errands like shopping for groceries and banking

We ask you to notice and to interrupt
The effects of colonialism in the disproportionate representation
Of Indigenous peoples in statistics about homelessness, school attrition,
unemployment, illness, the opioid crisis, imprisonment, self-harm,
And amongst those who have decided that this is too much to bear

We ask you not to stop at an acknowledgement,
however thoughtful it may be, and to remember
The intergenerational burdens that are carried by Indigenous Nations
As the cost of the promises of your bright, safe, and innocent future
In this place we call Canada today

We ask you to consider that colonialism is anything but ‘settled’
And to support Indigenous efforts and aspirations
To have our stolen lands returned
Our systems of self-governance and treaties recognized
And our livelihoods restored

Without making this about you
This is important, we will say this again
“Without making this about you”

We ask you to recognize and support
The efforts of the Land
To keep all of human and non-human beings alive
Despite the ongoing disrespect, neglect and destruction
Carried out in the name of ‘progress, development, and civilization’

Please take a minute to sit with the weight of the responsibility
We have asked you to embrace in this poem.

DEBRIEF QUESTIONS

From Kayah George, Halth-Leah:

Whose lands are you on? What do you know about the culture and history of this Nation?

Whose lands did you grow up in and currently reside on? What do you know about these Nations cultures and histories?

What is something you have learned from Indigenous Knowledge Systems?

What is your response to the statement that a lack of cultural understanding and connection to the land is a root of the climate crisis?

What intentions (and actions) do you have to disrupt and dismantle colonialism beyond territory acknowledgements?

From Lauren Jerke:

How do you show gratitude for the land?

What does it mean to practice reciprocity?

What is the history of how you came to be on this land? How has colonialism supported your arrival?

How can the entire event/class/session be structured (including your approach to facilitating and participating) to enact your responsibility to the land and the local Nations?

How did your early education shape your current relationship with land?

What does unceded mean? What are the Treaty laws of the land you are on?

From Cash Ahenakew:

To what extent are you numb to the pain of the Land, of the planet? To what extent can you feel it?

If your body is also Land, and the Land is suffering, how does the suffering of the Land manifest in your body?

What is your relationship with pain? In Western societies, pain is seen as something we are terrified of and should run away from. In fact, in Western contexts, well-being is defined as the absence of pain. How can someone who is afraid of pain gain the wisdom that comes from being present to painful things?

How can we change our relationship with pain so that we can experience pain as an important teacher?

Acknowledging complicity in harm can be painful. How can this acknowledgement be mobilized away from guilt and shame, as the basis of visceral responsibility?

DEBRIEF ACTIVITIES

Picture in your mind or draw a place on the land that makes you feel at peace. Imagine yourself giving a gift of gratitude to this place. Extension: Once you have imagined your own, share with a partner. Find a way to present both of your places and gifts in a movement piece.

Experience this poem in small groups using Choral Speech (using sound, volume, silence, multiple voices to emphasize certain parts of the text). Try it multiple times adding or changing aspects of it (e.g. add movement and rhytmn, emphasize every 4th word, create an echo for the most difficult-to-bear sentences, create breathing patterns for the poem).

INVITATION TO DIFFERENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

POEM: BEYOND “THANK YOU FOR THE REAL ESTATE”

DEBRIEF QUESTIONS

DEBRIEF ACTIVITIES

FURTHER READING