Land Acknowledgement - EN - November 2021 Update

.pdf

School

University of Calgary *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

481

Subject

Anthropology

Date

Oct 30, 2023

Type

pdf

Pages

Uploaded by ProfessorWren6138

A guide to acknowledging First Peoples and traditional land: Land acknowledgements for staff and volunteers Indigenous Advisory Committee Updated: November 2021

A guide to acknowledging First Peoples and traditional land Engineers Canada | Ingénieurs Canada Page 1 Contents Overview ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 Explanation of Terms .................................................................................................................................... 2 What is a land acknowledgement? ............................................................................................................... 3 Why do we do land acknowledgements? ..................................................................................................... 3 How do we do land acknowledgements? ..................................................................................................... 4 Who are the First Peoples of this area? .................................................................................................... 4 Pronunciation ............................................................................................................................................ 4 Your positionality ...................................................................................................................................... 4 In-person meetings ................................................................................................................................... 4 Personalization .......................................................................................................................................... 5 Take action ................................................................................................................................................ 5 Online meetings ........................................................................................................................................ 5 Written form ............................................................................................................................................. 6 Important considerations ............................................................................................................................. 6 Additional Resources .................................................................................................................................... 7

A guide to acknowledging First Peoples and traditional land Engineers Canada | Ingénieurs Canada Page 2 Overview Do you host meetings, or are working with volunteers and committees who host meetings? This resource is for you! The purpose of this document is to provide guidance and to answer questions for Engineers Canada staff, volunteers, and other stakeholders for conducting land acknowledgements at the beginning of meetings, public events, and conferences. This guideline will be your hub for understanding the value of conducting land acknowledgements, as well as tips, templates, and protocols for how to do a land acknowledgement at your meetings. It will be regularly updated by the Manager, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. Explanation of Terms There are a few terms and phrases we use throughout this guide that may be useful in constructing and delivering a land acknowledgement. You can read our definitions and explanations for these terms below. Settler society: Canada, as we know it today, was built on the lands of many Indigenous Nations and communities to form a settler society. Settler societies are established and maintained using many different strategies and mechanisms (including, but not limited to: genocide, forced assimilation, land dispossession, and resource exploitation), but ultimately, they create a system in which the people indigenous to the land are placed in a lower social status than those who come from other lands through strategic and violent means (see Resources section). By acknowledging the stewards of this land before colonialism, you are creating an opportunity for your audience to acknowledge a more complete and truthful history. Colonialism: The practice and strategy of asserting domination over a territory through force. Colonization involves the process of political control, occupation by settlers, and economic/resource exploitation. The colonial project almost always results in a settler society. Indigenous Peoples: We capitalize Indigenous Peoples as a proper noun when referring to the identities of people. In the context of this Land Acknowledgement Guide, Indigenous Peoples is the collective term for Métis, Inuit, and First Nations people who are within the borders of what we call Canada. This is not to say that the experiences of Métis, Inuit, and First Nations peoples are universal or monolithic. It is, however, a useful term in naming the universal treatment of these distinct and separate groups of people under colonization. indigenous peoples: indigenous peoples can also be lower case when referring to a relationship to the land. This includes lands both within and that extend beyond the borders of what we call Canada. In almost every corner of the world, there are people indigenous to that land. However, this may not be a primary identifying feature of that group, and in these cases “indigenous” is an adjective, not a proper noun.

A guide to acknowledging First Peoples and traditional land Engineers Canada | Ingénieurs Canada Page 3 What is a land acknowledgement? The land acknowledgements we hear today are based on an old tradition or protocol carried out by Indigenous communities in Canada. It is intended as a way for guests to show their respect for and pay homage to the Métis, Inuit, or First Nation communities with which they are visiting and engaging. Land acknowledgements can also be a responsibility. They implicate the speaker in the history of the land on which they work, live, and speak. “It recognizes the strength and wisdom of the place that has given rise to the people who are of that land and it invokes the spirit of that place to support your good intentions.” (S. Calvez., R. Roberts, 2020) Why do we do land acknowledgements? Land acknowledgements are a practice, but they are also part of a larger process that we are undertaking, as individuals and as an organization, towards reconciliation between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Peoples in Canada. The reality is that Indigenous people are underrepresented within the engineering profession and at the majority of the meetings and events we attend, so we have to be careful to not appropriate the traditional land acknowledgement practice in an empty and disconnected way. Engineers Canada supports the practices of land acknowledgements in order to: • Raise awareness of Indigenous presence and land rights in everyday life, for ourselves and meeting participants. • Inspire reflection and motivation to improve the relationship between Indigenous and non- Indigenous communities. • Acknowledge our personal position within the system of colonization. • Recognize the ongoing history of colonialism and abuse of Indigenous communities, including the detrimental impacts that the engineering profession has had on Indigenous communities through discriminatory practices and disregard for Indigenous rights, traditions and knowledge; where decision-making that directly impacts Indigenous communities has ignored the rights of Indigenous Peoples as stewards of their own land; where there has been a lack of free, prior, and informed consent from Indigenous communities with regards to development projects. • Complement self reflection and cultural competency of staff and volunteers. Land acknowledgements are not meant to: • threaten or alienate non-Indigenous or Indigenous people • speak for or represent Indigenous communities • appropriate Indigenous ideas and knowledge • be a performance of good intentions, without commitments and actions to facilitate meaningful change (see Resource section) • be the only action we take towards truth and reconciliation (see Resource section)

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version