Penobscot River, Penobscot (Penawahpskewi) Homelands 2022. Used with permission.
Penobscot River, Penobscot (Penawahpskewi) Homelands 2022. Used with permission.

Our mission is to move from rhetoric to action, linking dialogue with praxis. Land acknowledgements are not land back. They are initial points of reckoning, of resistance and for activation. Here, we welcome you into this space by highlighting ongoing Indigenous advocacy projects alongside landback movements. Our work is rooted in advocacy, action, and change.

EXAMPLES OF ACTION:

Local Contexts

Local Contexts is an initiative that supports Indigenous and local communities to manage their intellectual and cultural property, cultural heritage, environmental data, and genetic resources within digital environments.

Local Contexts offers digital strategies for Indigenous communities, institutions and organizations, and independent researchers with the Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Biocultural (BC) Labels and Notices. Together they function to advance aspirations for Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous innovation.

Read more about Local Contexts here.

DECOLONIZATION RIDER

"Emily Johnson / Catalyst requires all Presenters and all Presenting Partners collaborating on the presentation and development of [TITLE OF WORK] to comply with Indigenous Protocol and acknowledgement (i.e. Land Acknowledgment or Embodied Land Acknowledgment) of its host Nation in all announcements and press that includes [TITLE OF WORK] or reference thereof."

Find the Decolonization Rider here.

Makoce Ikikcupi

"Makoce Ikikcupi, meaning Land Recovery, is a project of Reparative Justice on Dakota land in Minisota Makoce (Minnesota). The Makoce Ikikcupi project seeks to bring some of our relatives home, re-establish our spiritual and physical relationship with our homeland, and ensure the ongoing existence of our People. Our cultural survival depends on it."

Read more about their project here.

CONAIE

La Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador, CONAIE es una organización que aglutina en su seno a las Nacionalidades, Pueblos, comunidades, Centros y Asociaciones indígenas del Ecuador.

Read more about the confederation here.

Indigenous Climate Action

Indigenous Climate Action (ICA) is an Indigenous-led organization guided by a diverse group of Indigenous knowledge keepers, water protectors and land defenders from communities and regions across the country. We believe that Indigenous Peoples’ rights and knowledge systems are critical to developing solutions to the climate crisis and achieving climate justice.

Find out more about their work here.

NDN Collective

NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. Through organizing, activism, philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building and narrative change, we are creating sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms.

Read more about the organization here.

Creating New Futures

Working Guidelines for Ethics & Equity in Presenting Dance & Performance

Find the guidelines and more here.

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led land trust based in the San Francisco Bay Area that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people.

Read more about the land trust here.

Do you know of a LandBack, land recovery or Indigenous resilience project that should feature here?

Send it to us: landacknowledgementsguide@gmail.com

Disclaimer: This resource has been developed to support the identification of components that contribute to an effective Land Acknowledgement and that can initiate steps towards meaningful and equitable relationship building with Indigenous Peoples and communities. We make no claims of authority or sole authorship in the creation of this resource. Rather, we recognize the multigenerational Indigenous efforts of past, present, and future leaders creating pathways for decolonial futures.

The question is: what can a Land Acknowledgement do and how can it lead to different futures, and different relationships? How can it lead to land back, how can it lead to knowledge back, how can it lead to ancestors and belongings back: #everythingback? To quote Joseph M. Pierce: “if decolonization is not a metaphor, then land acknowledgements cannot be metaphorical.