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),\u00a0 Chaa\u2019winisaks\u00a0 (Nuu-chah-nulth, Cheklesaht\/Kyuquot and Tla-o-qui-aht), Sisamia, Dani Pigeau (St\u014d:lo), Christine Stweart Galxa (Nisga\u2019a), Halth-Leah, Kayah George (Tulalip and Tsleil-Waututh Nations), Lauren Jerke (M\u00e9tis, Polish, Irish), Gail Stromquist (Spuzzum).<\/p>\n
It has become common in what is known as Canada today, to hear land acknowledgements by non-Indigenous people that include sentences like \u201cIt is my pleasure and privilege to live, work and play in this territory.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
While we understand the good intentions implied in statements like this, it is also important to notice how both settler \u201cpleasure and privilege\u201d 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 \u201cpleasure and privilege\u201d to live, work, and play on their own Lands.<\/p>\n
This poem invites non-Indigenous readers, or settlers, to engage in two key actions:<\/p>\n
1) To recognize the Land as a sacred, living entity from which we all originate\u2014a being to which we are inherently connected and relationally accountable to.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s title: \u201cThank you for the real estate.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
When you acknowledge the Land
\nPlease centre those who have not
\nForgotten its sacredness
\nAnd who have paid a high price
\nFor honouring their obligations towards it<\/p>\n
We ask you to take a moment to remember
\nThe genocides and ecocides
\nThat have happened on the Land and to the people of the Land
\nSo that you could have \u201cthe pleasure and privilege\u201d
\nTo live, love, work and play on stolen Indigenous Lands<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t want you to feel shame or guilt for being a settler
\nWe invite you to feel motivated and responsible
\nFor interrupting ongoing harm and continuous violence
\nTowards the Land, towards Indigenous peoples
\nTowards your own body, which is also Land<\/p>\n
We ask you to use the platforms available to you
\nto advance DRIPA, UNDRIP, the TRC Calls to Action,
\nand Section 35 of the Constitution,
\nthat upholds our inherent rights of
\nself-governance and of meaningful consultation
\nabout what happens in Indigenous territories<\/p>\n
We ask you to affirm your responsibilities towards
\nThe #LandBack movement,
\nThe Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit people (#MMIWG2S)
\nAnd the suffering of the families and communities whose children lie
\nIn unmarked graves on residential school sites<\/p>\n
We ask you to notice and to interrupt
\nThe effects of colonial violence on Indigenous bodies
\nTirelessly experiencing racism in healthcare, in education,
\nin their places of employment, in courtrooms, in prisons,
\nAnd while doing basic errands like shopping for groceries and banking<\/p>\n
We ask you to notice and to interrupt
\nThe effects of colonialism in the disproportionate representation
\nOf Indigenous peoples in statistics about homelessness, school attrition,
\nunemployment, illness, the opioid crisis, imprisonment, self-harm,
\nAnd amongst those who have decided that this is too much to bear<\/p>\n
We ask you not to stop at an acknowledgement,
\nhowever thoughtful it may be, and to remember
\nThe intergenerational burdens that are carried by Indigenous Nations
\nAs the cost of the promises of your bright, safe, and innocent future
\nIn this place we call Canada today<\/p>\n
We ask you to consider that colonialism is anything but \u2018settled\u2019
\nAnd\u00a0 to support Indigenous efforts and aspirations
\nTo have our stolen lands returned
\nOur systems of self-governance and treaties recognized
\nAnd our livelihoods restored<\/p>\n
Without making this about you
\nThis is important, we will say this again
\n\u201cWithout making this about you\u201d<\/p>\n
We ask you to recognize and support
\nThe efforts of the Land
\nTo keep all of human and non-human beings alive
\nDespite the ongoing disrespect, neglect and destruction
\nCarried out in the name of \u2018progress, development, and civilization\u2019<\/p>\n
Please take a minute to sit with the weight of the responsibility
\nWe have asked you to embrace in this poem.<\/p>\n
From Kayah George, Halth-Leah:<\/strong><\/p>\n Whose lands are you on? What do you know about the culture and history of this Nation?<\/p>\n Whose lands did you grow up in and currently reside on? What do you know about these Nations cultures and histories?<\/p>\n What is something you have learned from Indigenous Knowledge Systems?<\/p>\n 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?<\/p>\n What intentions (and actions) do you have to disrupt and dismantle colonialism beyond territory acknowledgements?<\/p>\n From Lauren Jerke:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n How do you show gratitude for the land?<\/p>\n What does it mean to practice reciprocity?<\/p>\n What is the history of how you came to be on this land? How has colonialism supported your arrival?<\/p>\n 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?<\/p>\n How did your early education shape your current relationship with land?<\/p>\n What does unceded mean? What are the Treaty laws of the land you are on?<\/p>\n From Cash Ahenakew:<\/strong><\/p>\n To what extent are you numb to the pain of the Land, of the planet? To what extent can you feel it?<\/p>\n If your body is also Land, and the Land is suffering, how does the suffering of the Land manifest in your body?<\/p>\n 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?<\/p>\n How can we change our relationship with pain so that we can experience pain as an important teacher?<\/p>\n Acknowledging complicity in harm can be painful. How can this acknowledgement be mobilized away from guilt and shame, as the basis of visceral responsibility?<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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).<\/p>\n Ambo, T., & Rocha Beardall, T. (2023). Performance or progress? The physical and rhetorical removal of Indigenous Peoples in settler land acknowledgments at land-grab universities. American Educational Research Journal, 60(1), 103-140.<\/p>\n Cornum, L. (2019). Burial ground acknowledgements. The New Inquiry.\u00a0https:\/\/thenewinquiry.com\/burial-ground-acknowledgements\/<\/a><\/p>\n Daigle, M. (2019). The spectacle of reconciliation: On (the) unsettling responsibilities to Indigenous peoples in the academy. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 37(4), 703-721.<\/p>\n Kouri, S (2020). Settler Education, Acknowledgement, Self-location and Settler Ethics in Teaching and Learning.<\/p>\n Gouldhawke, M. (2020). Land as a social relationship. Briarpatch Magazine.\u00a0https:\/\/briarpatchmagazine.com\/articles\/view\/land-as-a-social-relationship<\/a><\/p>\n Riddle, E. (2020). Interview with Elder Jo-Ann Saddleback \u201cI have the inalienable right to protect this land\u201d in Briarpatch (Land Back issue).\u00a0https:\/\/briarpatchmagazine.com\/articles\/view\/i-have-the-inalienable-right-to-protect-this-land<\/a><\/p>\n Robinson, D., Hill, K. J. C., Ruffo, A. G., Couture, S., & Ravensbergen, L. C. (2019). Rethinking the practice and performance of Indigenous land acknowledgement. Canadian Theatre Review, 177(1), 20-30.<\/p>\n Simpson, L. (2017). Land as Pedagogy. In As We Have Always Done (p. 145\u2013173). University of Minnesota Press.<\/p>\n Stewart-Ambo, T., & Yang, K. W. (2021). Beyond land acknowledgment in settler institutions. Social Text, 39(1), 21-46.<\/p>\n Vowel, C. (2016). Beyond territorial acknowledgements. \u00e2pihtawikosis\u00e2n.\u00a0https:\/\/apihtawikosisan.com\/2016\/09\/beyond-territorial-acknowledgments\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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),\u00a0 Chaa\u2019winisaks\u00a0 … Continue reading Land Acknowledgement Poem<\/span> DEBRIEF ACTIVITIES<\/h3>\n
FURTHER \u00a0READING<\/h3>\n