this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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What’s a land acknowledgment? Is this a thing that happens in some countries?
A purity ritual done in the west to absolve guilt, like a prayer at a beginning of a meeting. As OP said, if it was serious about actually trying to be decolonial instead of just posturing it wouldn't use passive voice but would point to a guilty party and advocate action, instead of just passively acknowledging defeat over and over
It's a thing lib governments/companies do in the US/Canada/Australia, typically at the start of presentations or as part of an e-mail signature, where they say something like "We recognize that we are on the unceded land of local indigenous people". Depending on who's saying it, it can be either sincere (but misguided) or virtue signaling (typically from the government entities that would actually have the power to do something: "People care about this so we'll say it but we're sure as hell not doing anything").
IMO it's a lib way of recognizing that we stole and genocided our way through the land of the US/Canada/Australia and we feel bad which ironically makes it less likely for people to do anything to actually support righting those wrongs because they feel that at least something is being done. Kind of like how voting in our sham federal elections that will result in no change is 100% of the political activity of the average american, and they feel like they've done their part.
I don't actually think this is true. I guarantee you if you talked to people who do land acknowledgements they'd be more in favor of land back policies than your average USian who has never even thought about it.
I believe it started in academia, in sociological or anthropological circles. It was a thing that the more left-leaning or social-liberal professors started to do to challenge their students and raise awareness in a somewhat non-confrontational manner (If you started telling all the rich white liberal kids that they were the enemy and beneficiaries of genocide right off the bat they will go aggro and storm out and clam up).
From there it got co-opted by the administrative class that rent-seeks off the massive cost of higher education, and from there it jumped from consultants to HR departments to PR departments of corporations and NGOs, and eventually to the DNC. It really gained speed during 2020 during the George Floyd protests as yet another way to jump on the bandwagon of progressive causes like BLM.
That’s such an odd thing to do lol like I get it if your heart is in the right place but actually doing something would go a lot farther.