Recognizing where we are

Land acknowledgement statements at UM Dearborn

It is Indigenous People’s Day in Michigan and in the United States. There are many ways to use this date to remind ourselves and our students about the intersection between what we teach and its application to addressing current concerns of and historical injustice towards indigenous people here and around the world. The US Department of Arts and Culture even has resource packs available for download (which is where I found this post’s opening image).

What is a land acknowledgement?

One rhetorical strategy that has started to gain widespread recognition is that of the “Land Acknowledgement Statement.” “The purpose of a land acknowledgement is to recognize, respect and affirm the ongoing relationship between Indigenous people and the land. Land acknowledgements also raise awareness about the Indigenous histories, perspectives and experiences that are often suppressed or forgotten,” according to the Native American Institute at Michigan State University.

The Bentley Historical Library in Ann Arbor composed a land acknowledgement statement for the University of Michigan as part of the bicentennial celebration of the university in 2017-18. Here is their text in full:

“As the archives for the history of the University of Michigan, the Bentley Historical Library acknowledges that the historical origins and present location of the University were made possible by indigenous people’s cession of lands under coercive treaties common in the colonization and expansion of the United States. In particular we note:

The University’s three campuses are located on lands of the Anishinaabeg and Wyandot, which were ceded under Article 1 of the Treaty of Detroit in 1807.

The University’s endowment was originally funded in significant measure by sale of land granted under Article 16 of the 1817 Treaty of the Foot of the Rapids, also known as the Treaty of Ft. Meigs. This grant, for “the college at Detroit,” was made by Anishinaabeg — including Odawa, Ojibwe, and Bodewadami — so that their children could be educated.

These lands continue to be the homeland of many indigenous people, and through these words of acknowledgment, we seek to reaffirm and respect their contemporary and ancestral ties to the land and to recognize their contributions to the University.“

https://bentley.umich.edu/land-acknowledgment-statement/

In Ann Arbor it is possible to visit a plaque that commemorates the Land Gift, dedicated in 2002. Other departments and colleges have written their own statements, such as LSA’s department of American Culture and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Should I use a land acknowledgement statement?

Like any gesture towards creating an equitable learning and working environment, a statement alone has a limited impact. Land acknowledgement statements have been part of the Canadian landscape for somewhat longer than they have been south of the border, and so more of our colleagues there have had time to experience both the positives of hearing and speaking land acknowledgements, as well as the limitations when the statement is both the beginning and the end. Chelsea Vowel, a Cree language instructor at the Faculty of Native studies at the University of Alberta, wrote a detailed reflection on the growing presence of land acknowledgement statements in Canada in 2016. I highly encourage you to read through the essay in it’s entirety! I pulled the following passage as a summary of her take on the disruptive power of land acknowledgements:

“If we think of territorial acknowledgments as sites of potential disruption, they can be transformative acts that to some extent undo Indigenous erasure. I believe this is true as long as these acknowledgments discomfit both those speaking and hearing the words. The fact of Indigenous presence should force non-Indigenous peoples to confront their own place on these lands. I would like to see territorial acknowledgments happening in spaces where they are currently absent, particularly in rural and remote areas and within the governance structures of settlers.

However as we are already seeing, territorial acknowledgments can become stripped of their disruptive power through repetition. The purpose cannot merely be to inform an ignorant public that Indigenous peoples exist, and that Canada has a history of colonialism.“

https://apihtawikosisan.com/2016/09/beyond-territorial-acknowledgments/

Similarly, Debbie Reese of American Indians in Children’s Literature (AICL) published a post with a twitter thread of hers asking the question “Are you planning to do a Land Acknowledgement?” Again, I can’t encourage you strongly enough to read the entire post (also for the many recommendations for further reading!) But three steps that I’d encourage you to take away from this post are included in the fifteenth tweet:

“15) In other words: do some work before doing a Land Acknowledgement. Make it meaningful. Give your audience a task.”

https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2019/03/are-you-planning-to-do-land.html

To that end, I hope that this blog post inspires us to do some work, in order to make any statement above meaningful for ourselves and for our students. If the “audience” is students then consider: “What is the task set before me and my class, as a result of remembering the history of Native Americans in the Detroit area? How can I design our learning experience to recognize the continued presence of indigenous people in our discipline, community, and wider world?”