Land Acknowledgment Statements

[traci_gardner]

If you attended CCCC last month, you probably heard a land acknowledgment statement, which offered respect to the indigenous peoples upon whose lands the conference took place. For example, Asao B. Inoue began his #4C19 Keynote (video) with this statement:

To open, I humbly make a land acknowledgment I would like to recognize and acknowledge the indigenous people of this land: the Lenni Lenape, Shawnee, and Hodinöhšönih (hoe-den-ah-show-nee)—the six Nations, that is, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga and Tuscarora (tus-ka-roar-ah). We are gathered today on Jö:deogë’ (joan-day-o-gan’t), an Onödowa'ga (ono-do-wah-gah) or Senaca word for Pittsburgh or “between two rivers”: the welhik hane (well-ick hah-neh) and Mënaonkihëla (men-aw-n-gee-ah-luh). These are the Lenape words for the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, which translate to the “best flowing river of the hills” and “where the banks cave in and erode.” While a land acknowledgment is not enough, it is an important social justice and decolonial practice that promotes indigenous visibility and a reminder that we are on settled indigenous land. Let this land acknowledgment be an opening for all of us to contemplate a way to join in decolonial and indigenous movements for sovereignty and self-determination.

I recently added a similar land acknowledgment statement to my course materials, thanking the Tutelo/Monacan people upon whose land Virginia Tech stands. Inspired by a graphic from Northwestern University, I also created the draft image (shown on the right), which I intend to add as a poster on my office door after I receive feedback on whether it is appropriate. I admit it has taken me too long to add these statements to my course materials.

Angela Haas, from Illinois State University, shared the first land acknowledgment statement I ever heard at a Computers and Writing Conference session several years ago. I was impressed by the statement and wished I could add one to my own work. At the time however, I wasn’t sure how to construct a land acknowledgment statement, so I didn’t try. I was and am ashamed of my behavior. I let my privilege as a non-indigenous person serve as an excuse, telling myself it was better to say nothing than to piece together an acknowledgment I wasn’t sure was appropriate.

I want to share some resources readers can use to add a land acknowledgment statement to their publications, events, and course materials.

• Check your campus for an existing land acknowledgment statement. Check with American Indian and Indigenous Studies student groups, cultural centers, and departments. If such resources do not exist, contact your office of diversity and inclusion. A research librarian at your school can also help. If you are working in Canada, such a statement is likely to already exist, so check with your colleagues.
• Take advantage of existing resources if you plan to write your own land acknowledgment statement. If a statement does not exist, use the Guide to Indigenous Land and Territorial Acknowledgments for Cultural Institutions from New York University and the #HonorNativeLand Guide from U.S. Department of Arts and Culture to get started. Again, a librarian at your school can also help you find relevant resources.
• Review land acknowledgment statements from other institutions. Check peer institutions your school uses for benchmarking purposes. Also look for examples from schools and cultural centers from your geographical area, which likely share the same tribal lands you do. These Example Land Acknowledgment Statements demonstrate the range of details and styles used in the genre.
• Learn how to pronounce the names of the indigenous peoples included in your statement. As Kyllikki Rytov pointed out on the WPA-L listserv, “[I]n terms of erasure, getting names right is paramount.” Land acknowledgments must include pronouncing names with respect. The #4C19 statement above includes parenthetical pronunciation information, which can serve as a model for your own statement. If you are unsure how to pronounce a name, check with local tribal members or with campus American Indian and Indigenous Studies cultural centers, student groups, or departments. Your library’s research staff can also help you find pronunciation information.
• Ask local tribal members or other experts to review your work. As I suggest in relationship to my image above, you need to check any land acknowledgment statements you create to ensure your words and images are appropriately representative of and respectful of the tribe(s) whose land you are acknowledging. If you have an American Indian and Indigenous Studies cultural center or department, ask them if they can give you feedback.
• Once you have a land acknowledgment statement, use it and encourage others to use it as well. Open your events with your land acknowledgment statement. Add a land acknowledgment statement to your research and other publications. Include a land acknowledgment statement on your course materials.
• Remember that a land acknowledgment statement is only the first step. It doesn’t immunize you against social injustice or colonial practices. Examine your reading lists to ensure they include indigenous authors. Include indigenous issues in your discussions. Invite students to explore indigenous readings and events in their work. Encourage them to add land acknowledgment statements to their own projects. Call out actions that demean native peoples. Make the arts, cultures, and concerns of native Indian and indigenous visible in your courses, research, and events.

I hope these resources will help you add a land acknowledgment statement to your work. The documents from the second bullet point include details on why land acknowledgments are important. You can use these resources to help students understand why you use the statements and help them learn strategies to make their work diverse and inclusive.

If you have a land acknowledgment statement you would like added to the Example Land Acknowledgment Statements document, please share it in a comment below. If you have other suggestions for acknowledging indigenous people, please let me know.