Our main focus for this project is to bring light to land acknowledgements and how it is not as effective as people make it out to seem. In “Land Acknowledgements Accomplish Little”, Alex Small talks about how land acknowledgements are mostly all talk but no action. What this article states is that it is easy to acknowledge past mistakes but to take action of the situation is what is needed. Performative Activism has been a big topic this past year especially with the Black Lives Matter Movement, but in actual fact, performative activism has been around for a long time and with First Nations as well. 

What my partner Michelle and I want to do is to help regain the purpose of the land acknowledgments and to show that there is much more for the public to do to fully educate themselves on this matter, and that starts with classroom education. This project would be directed towards students from kindergarten to high school. Looking back on last year and the number of social issues that had resurfaced, this younger generation had an overall good response to taking the next step to change. By educating the young, we hope to start discussions in households and to carry on to educating the next generation and so on.

Research Links:

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/01/09/why-land-acknowledgments-arent-worth-much-opinion

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-has-indigenous-land-acknowledgment-at-public-gatherings-become-an/

https://etfofnmi.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Going-Beyond-A-Land-Acknowledgement-FINAL-VERSION.pdf

A guide to Indigenous land acknowledgment

Land acknowledgements are a good first step, but there’s a lot more work to be done

https://www.vice.com/en/article/j5yxbd/indigenous-artists-tell-us-what-they-think-about-land-acknowledgements