What's wrong with land acknowledgements, and how to make them better

They've become so commonplace that you'll hear land acknowledgments at the start of hockey games, during academic conferences and even written at the bottom of corporate email signatures.

In an era of reconciliation, they're political statements meant to recognize First Nations, Inuit, and Métis territory, however many Indigenous people argue they've grown to become superficial, performative — and problematic. 

CBC Indigenous spoke with five First Nations people about the issues they see, what they expect when others make land acknowledgments and advice on how they can ring less hollow.

For Ta7talíya Michelle Nahanee, who offers workshops on how to give territorial acknowledgments, land acknowledgments shouldn't be copied, pasted and read statements but rather meaningful personal commitments. Nahanee is Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) from Eslha7án (Ustlawn) in B.C.

"I don't tell people which word to use, but I ask them to consider each word critically," said Nahanee, founder and CEO of the Vancouver-based business Nahanee Creative, a company that provides education and awareness to promote social change.

"I want people to be able to back up what you're saying, truly believe in it, and be ready to answer the question when someone criticizes you."

That also means taking the time to research specific names of nations rather than sweeping generalizations, and being cautious of subtext.

Even though they're called land or territorial acknowledgments, Nahanee said using the phrase "I acknowledge" can imply that it's not true.

"You wouldn't say, 'I acknowledge that my hair is brown, my eyes brown.' You just are on the land of these peoples," she said.

It's also important to keep the wording in the present tense, she said.

"A tool of colonialism is to keep us in the past tense," said Nahanee.

"To speak about your territorial acknowledgment in the past continues that dominant narrative."

Hayden King, who is Anishinaabe from Beausoleil First Nation in Ontario, helped write Ryerson University's land acknowledgment in 2012. It's something he said he now regrets.

King said some of the problems he sees in Toronto is that land acknowledgments are simply inaccurate, include the same nation multiple times under different terms, or misinterpret treaty concepts such as the Dish With One Spoon into a metaphor of a "multicultural utopia."