DuVal: Enough With the Land Acknowledgments

One USA perspective. Sympathetic as they seem largely performative:

…My colleague Amanda Cobb-Greetham, the founding director of the Chickasaw Cultural Center in Sulphur, Okla., and a citizen of the Chickasaw nation, told me that instead of lengthy discussions about whether and how to write land acknowledgments, institutions should engage in active and meaningful relationships with the Native nations that are now or were on the lands those institutions occupy. Florida State University and the Seminole Tribe of Florida have established such a relationship, which started with the tribe’s involvement in designing the mascot’s regalia but now extends to other partnerships, including creating a Native American and Indigenous Studies Center.

Cities, counties and states could share jurisdiction of some of their lands and projects to tribes and work as partners. The Covid-19 virus hit reservations particularly hard in the early months of the pandemic, but because in the past few decades many tribes took over the management of their public health systems from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, many tribal governments ultimately had better outcomes than neighboring non-Native-majority counties. Tribes already partner with the federal government in areas such as land and resource management, marking the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and cleaning up Superfund sites. Rather than mourn the past through land acknowledgments, institutions should expand these more practical efforts and work with modern Native nations as true partners.

Kathleen DuVal is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the author, most recently, of “Native Nations: A Millennium in North America.”

Source: Enough With the Land Acknowledgments