I came across news that a startup I had never heard about failed and became insolvent. I went to its “About Us” page and there I see this:
And? Are you gonna do anything about that?
Is this a Canadian thing?
I came across news that a startup I had never heard about failed and became insolvent. I went to its “About Us” page and there I see this:
And? Are you gonna do anything about that?
Is this a Canadian thing?
It’s called a land acknowledgement. I’ve only ever really seen land acknowledgements in the context of Canada, Australia, and Seppoland/USA. For instance the National Museum of Australia has a far less specific land acknowledgement that pops up the first time you visit their site.
It’s maybe a nice touch to black out the screen and make you sit through that statement, but it’s still a weird message, right? Like the National Museum of Australia has a physical presence, on the lands of the Ngunnawal people, so why not, like, acknowledge the Ngunnawal people specifically instead of just saying “First Australians”? And why stop at “acknowledging” and “recognizing a continuous connection”, what the heck’s that supposed to mean?
In any case, land acknowledgements (provided they’re written well) are by all means a good thing that you should do if you’re visiting or living in one of those regions, I’ve done land acknowledgements myself by signing my Hexbear comments for the duration of when I was in the Mdewakanton lands. The best land acknowledgements don’t mince words about the specifics of the history, including one’s own role in it, and will highlight a concrete plan and commitment towards realizing Native sovereignty.
Here’s Native Governance Center’s guide to land acknowledgements:
https://nativegov.org/resources/a-guide-to-indigenous-land-acknowledgment/
For that matter, here’s Native Governance Center’s own land acknowledgement statement for you to compare and contrast with the one written by that startup.
https://nativegov.org/about/our-land-acknowledgement-statement/
As I understand it, in fact, land acknowledgements as a practice started with Native people from different groups moving to or visiting each others’ lands, and it was only later when whites started doing the land acknowledgements, too. There is still some amount of disagreement about best practice when it comes to land acknowledgements, and how statements like that startup’s should be taken.
Edit: I guess I can mention one more land acknowledgement I’ve seen. When I was looking into Dakota language lessons in preparation for my visit to the Mdewakanton lands, I found a series of video lessons, each part opening with a ten second long silent black screen with the following text:
Klanada does a lot of land acknowledgements these days but I can’t recall one where this part was included. Not surprising, unfortunately.