Revisiting “Beyond Territorial Acknowledgments”*

I would like to begin by acknowledging that I am writing this at my kitchen table which is located on Treaty 6 territory and within the Métis Homeland, a traditional gathering place for diverse Indigenous Peoples (land and kitchen table both). I acknowledge my unhoused relatives in nearby encampments who are preparing for a harsh prairie winter, made more difficult by regular police raids that destroy property, shelter, and dignity, in the name of “public safety”. I acknowledge my non-human kin, particularly mahkêsiw, coyote, whose continued existence in this urban space evokes a flurry of social media warnings and pleas for a cull. I acknowledge the ghosts of paskwâwi-mostoswak, the buffalo, whose genocide made non-Indigenous settlement on these lands possible.

I acknowledge my frustration with being unable to live in my own community at manitow-sâkahikan, Lac Ste. Anne, because most of my people have been displaced by summer cottagers, and I cannot find a job that will allow me to support my family outside of the city.  I acknowledge that despite all the mouthed platitudes about respecting Indigenous sovereignty, lands, history and so forth, settler colonialism is as strong and present as ever. 

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In 2016, a year after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) published a Territorial Acknowledgement Guide, since renamed a Guide to Acknowledging First Peoples & Traditional Territory (CAUT 2017). The territorial acknowledgments found in this guide vary from fairly short:

University of British Columbia, Okanagan (Kelowna, BC) – “We [I] would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the unceded territory of the Sylix (Okanagan) Peoples.”

To much more detailed:

King’s University College (London, ON) – “We [I] would like to acknowledge the history of the traditional territory on which this university stands. We [I] would also like to respect the longstanding relationships of the three local First Nations groups of this land and place in Southwestern Ontario.

The Attawandaran (Neutral) Peoples once settled this region alongside the Algonquin and Haudenosaunee peoples, and used this land as their traditional beaver hunting grounds. 

The three other longstanding Indigenous groups of this geographic region are: the Anishinaabe Peoples (also referred to as the Three Fires Confederacy including; Ojibwe, Odawa, and Pottawatami Nations); the Haudenosaunee Peoples (also known as the Iroquoian people or Six Nations including Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora); and, the Leni-Lunaape Peoples (also referred to as the Delaware and/or Munsee).

The three First Nations communities closest in proximity to this University are: Chippewa of the Thames First Nation (part of the Anishinaabe); Oneida Nation of the Thames (part of the Haundenosaunee); and Munsee-Delaware Nation (part of the Leni-Lunaape).”

As stated in the Territorial Acknowledgment guide:

“The goal of this guide is to encourage all academic staff association representatives and members to acknowledge the First Peoples on whose traditional territories we live and work.”

The guide goes on to clarify that building reciprocal relationships with Indigenous Peoples is key to reconciliation, and that territorial acknowledgments must be understood as part of a wider process of “genuine and ongoing work to forge real understanding, and to challenge the legacies of colonialism.” 

I want to unpack that statement in a moment. Territorial acknowledgements, also known as land, or title acknowledgments, have become fairly common in urban, progressive spaces in Canada. I am not certain when the first territorial acknowledgment was included in an event, but I have been hearing them now for over 20 years, so they are somewhat established this side of the medicine line.

When I think about territorial acknowledgments, a few things come to mind that I’d like to explore:

• First, what is the purpose of these acknowledgments? Both what those making the territorial acknowledgments say they intend, as well as what Indigenous Peoples think may be the purpose.
• Second, what can we learn about the way these acknowledgments are delivered? Are there best practices?
• Third, in what spaces do these acknowledgements happen and more importantly, where are they not found?
• Finally, what can exist beyond territorial acknowledgements?

Purpose

“Acknowledging territory shows recognition of and respect for Aboriginal Peoples, which is key to reconciliation” (CAUT 2017).

“A territorial acknowledgment is important as part of our churches living into right relations with Indigenous peoples. For churches that ran residential schools, it is part of living out our apologies for that reality and its ongoing legacy. It is a statement of respect and a statement that provokes further thought and reflection. It is a way to counteract the ideologies operating in the Doctrine of Discovery by naming that the land was not empty when Europeans first arrived on Turtle Island. It can be an opportunity to acknowledge the spirituality of Indigenous peoples that was not respected by churches and was used to justify colonialism, including the residential schools” (KAIROS 2015).

From these two quotes, it is clear that the intended purpose of territorial acknowledgments from a settler perspective is recognition as a form of reconciliation. KAIROS goes a bit deeper in the intention to also acknowledge the abusive power dynamics at play when government-sanctioned churches ran residential schools, where Indigenous Peoples were forced to attend. What is being “recognized” is not merely Indigenous presence, but also a series of structural violences that have been perpetrated against Indigenous Peoples as part of the creation of Canada – a deeper form of truth-telling with the goal of reconciliation.

From an Indigenous perspective, territorial acknowledgments can be a form of resisting erasure. As the First Nations Health Authority in BC states, “a core strategy of Canadian colonialism has been the systematic removal of First Nations peoples not only from their lands, communities and cultural practices, but also from the public imagination and the popular identity of Canadian society” (n.d., 3). Resisting this removal is no small feat, and it seems to me that when territorial acknowledgments first began, they were fairly powerful statements of presence, somewhat shocking, perhaps even unwelcome in settler spaces. They provoked discomfort and centered Indigenous priority on these lands – lands that we were supposed to vanish from.

Now, before anyone dismisses the unsettling potential of these statements, you should know that in 2021, the New Brunswick government ordered provincial employees to stop making territorial acknowledgements on the legal advice of that province’s Attorney General, Huge Flemming. He stated “the directive was in response to a lawsuit filed… by six Wolastoqey communities claiming ownership of more than sixty per cent of the province” (Bisset 2021). The only reason to take this position is fear – fear that these acknowledgments can be used as admissions of guilt in land claims cases, meaning the Attorney General believed such statements could be given legal weight. 

If only this were true! Perhaps then, as the satirical website Walking Eagle News predicted in 2017 (Fontaine), a “malfunction” in territorial acknowledgments could somehow return land to Indigenous Peoples. Job done! 

Alas, liberation isn’t as easy as finding a loophole, a spell or incantation, or some previously-hidden legal argument.

It must be emphasized that these territorial acknowledgments flow from the work of Indigenous Peoples themselves, who are resisting invisibilization – they are not the inventions of settlers. In the past few years, I have come across a number of instances where settlers refused to make territorial acknowledgments, claiming that theirs was a principled stance based on this belief that the statements were non-Indigenous creations. In other cases, settlers judged territorial acknowledgments too flawed to repeat – to which I would say, deepen your own relationship and craft a better one rather than skipping it. 

Refusing to engage with the evolving practice should not be framed as working in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples. I have yet to meet a settler so elevated in perfect allyship that a territorial acknowledgment was unnecessary, no matter what other work they were engaged in. Despite the many valid critiques that can be leveled against the way territorial acknowledgments are operationalized, it cannot be argued that constant repetition of the names of Indigenous Nations erases those names from public consciousness. At the very least, even when pronunciations are mangled, people are answering Destiny’s Child’s call to “say my name, say my name” (1999).

 When these acknowledgments are crafted, they are usually done so in consultation with local Indigenous Peoples – and if that isn’t happening, then as Stewart-Ambo and Yang spell out in their whys of land acknowledgments “for acknowledgment, get in relation” (2021, 32). However, it is also interesting to geographically track the criticisms of territorial acknowledgements, as a way of tracing their lineage. Anecdotally, the strongest Indigenous critiques of these acknowledgments have tended to come from the west coast of Canada, suggesting they have been happening there the longest, whereas in other places where territorial acknowledgments are still being introduced they can be legitimately “cutting edge” in that political milieu. That’s not to say that strong Indigenous critique cannot exist absent of a tradition of territorial acknowledgments! We have been importing the practice into the United States, and it is not necessarily welcomed there by all Indigenous Peoples for reasons as yet unrelated to the rendering of such statements meaningless through repetition. 

“When working on or within the traditional territory of a First Nation there is protocol to follow. It can be customary between one First Nation and another to acknowledge the host First Nation Peoples and their traditional territory at the outset of any meeting…it follows then, that if you want to [work] with a First Nation, one of the best ways is to show respect to the Nation by following traditional territory protocol” (Joseph 2019).

This quote by Bob Joseph suggests that territorial acknowledgments can also be a way of honouring traditional Indigenous protocol. I disagree that these acknowledgements can accomplish such a thing as they are currently practiced, as such statements of thanks to hosts barely even scratch the surface of such traditional protocols. In fact, I think it is dangerous to even suggest that territorial acknowledgments alone satisfy protocol in any way unless concrete actions accompany the words spoken. To be clear, I believe Joseph has a much more nuanced understanding than this and it’s not him I’m worried about – it’s how this quote gets interpreted. I will return to this when I discuss moving beyond acknowledgments. 

Another purpose of territorial acknowledgments, related to emphasizing continuous Indigenous presence, stems from a desire to make spaces feel less unsafe for Indigenous Peoples. For example, at McGill University in Québec, asking for territorial acknowledgment was part of a wider attempt by student groups to “[create] a more welcoming environment for Indigenous students. The proposal called for McGill to publicly acknowledge on its website and in email signatures that McGill is built on traditionally Kanien’kehá:ka land” (Kaur 2015). I personally experienced McGill as an incredibly alienating and invisibilizing environment, and that institution still has a lot of work to do in terms of meaningfully acknowledging Indigenous presence, and Indigenous students, compared to some other universities. As a newer practice in such environments, territorial acknowledgments continue to have the power to disrupt and discomfit settler colonialism.

I believe territorial acknowledgments can have numerous purposes, and in fact can be repurposed, so merely examining the stated intentions of these invocations is insufficient. What may start out as radical push-back against the denial of Indigenous priority and continued presence, often ends up repurposed as “box-ticking” inclusion without commitment to any sort of real change. In fact, I believe this is the inevitable progression, a situation of familiarity breeding contempt – or at least apathy.

Practice

The way in which territorial acknowledgments are delivered must matter. Are they formulaic recitations that barely penetrate the consciousness of the speaker and those listening? Are they something that must be ‘gotten through’ before the meeting or speech can begin? Are they just tacked on to an email signature?

Can we escape dilution through repetition?

“…at a conference: a speaker acknowledged that we were on the traditional territory of the Musqueam peoples – and that was it. Yes, there was an acknowledgement, and yes, that is better than no acknowledgment at all. However, the speaker failed to situate themself – by that I mean, they did not locate themself as a guest who is actively working against colonialism. In failing to do so, the speaker revealed their complacency in ongoing settler colonialism.”

“Oftentimes, when non-Indigenous organizers make a territory acknowledgment, it is done hastily (weacknowledgethatwearegatheredonuncededcoastsalishterritory), and then discarded (now on with the show!) (K 2014).”

What do territorial acknowledgments mean for people who have heard them ad nauseam? I mean, how carefully do frequent flyers listen to safety presentations during their flight?

On the other hand, rituals and repetition are not necessarily bad things. Establishing a practice of acknowledgment can be part of wider attempts to address settler colonialism and build better relationships with Indigenous peoples. In 2016, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) began announcing a daily territorial acknowledgment across all 588 schools – ironically delivered after students are asked to stand for O Canada (Martin 2016). As a TDSB vice-principal quoted in the Martin article put it “the important thing is we don’t just read the acknowledgement and check it off on a list, and say, ‘OK, we’re doing our job… what our next step is, is working with students and staff to make sure we understand what it really means, and help support that learning.” 

In 2016, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Kwakwaka’wakw educator and community organizer Khelsilem, offered some suggestions for territorial acknowledgement practice that take us beyond merely saying some scripted words. His first suggestion addressed an issue that often bothers me; the widespread – and quite mistaken – belief that the bulk of land was legally given over to the Canadian state through treaty. For acknowledgments that identify territories as “unceded”:

“Unceded” is language to use with the Crown/Settler State. There is a misconception that BC is mostly unceded due to a lack of treaties – which implies those in areas with treaties are what? Ceded territories?… Elevate Indigenous polity…Use the brief moment of acknowledgement to elevate Indigenous society, governance, and jurisdiction (Khelsilem 2016).”

Khelsilem also brought up the importance of being aware of the fact territorial acknowledgments are not always cut and dry, particularly when there are competing Indigenous claims to a specific area.

“In Vancouver, for example, many are told that “Vancouver is Musqueam territory!!!! The Squamish only moved in here in the 1850s”. That’s one perspective. And by going with and elevating that single perspective, you’re inserting yourself into the process that the local Indigenous communities are going through to address historical grievances (mostly caused by the imposition of colonial boundaries and dispossession).”

Simply because there is a standardized guide available should not mean that people do not have to continue to ask questions and work on these acknowledgements. In fact, as Jennifer Matsunaga (2016) put it, “I worry about the work that has been done for us, here. I take issue with the institutional standardization and expectation of these acknowledgments. It is important for people to do their own searching and learning.” Merely mouthing the names of local Indigenous nations does not automatically confer understanding. Best practices must evolve over time through deeper engagement with the purpose and impact of territorial acknowledgments.

However, dilution through repetition is not the only potential issue with territorial acknowledgments. What do we do when the statement is directly contradicted by the content of the event, or by the actions of the person or organization reciting it? Are there circumstances where it is grossly inappropriate for a territorial acknowlegment to be given? Should we in fact, at times, insist that territorial acknowledgments not be given?

For many years, outside of Canadian universities, territorial acknowledgments tended to be limited to those institutions and groups with leftist politics, but more and more we are witnessing the corporatization of this practice. Territorial acknowledgments issued by Canadian banks who fund the rights-violating Coastal GasLink Pipeline on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory can feel particularly foul (RBC n.d.). The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has issued multiple territorial acknowledgments in statements, on websites, and engraved into plaques around the country. Given the historic and ongoing militarized violence that the RCMP – and its predecessor the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) – have and continue to visit on Indigenous communities, is it meaningful when they also “acknowledge the cultures and contributions” of Indigenous Peoples?

Then again, taken further, do we really want to hear territorial acknowledgments from the Canadian government who continues to claim sovereignty over all Indigenous lands, resources, and Peoples? To me, these contested practices highlight the need for these statements to be tied to concrete actions. Political purity is not a prerequisite to issuing territorial acknowledgments, but neither can we allow them to go uncontested. Building in an accountability process must be a part of the overall formulation and expression.

Spaces

I have been talking about territorial acknowledgments as though they are ubiquitous, when in fact they are very limited to specific kinds of spaces. Again, more common in western Canada than in the east or north, territorial acknowledgments tend to happen in urban institutional and activist settings – an interesting juxtaposition. 

Wilkes and colleagues grouped types of acknowledgments practiced at Canadian universities between 2015 – 2016 into five general categories by geographic space within Canada: “of land and title (British Columbia), of specific treaties and political relationships (Prairies), of multiculturalism and heterogeneity (Ontario), of no practice (most of Quebec), and of people, territory, and openness to doing more (Atlantic)” (2017). “Where” seems to impact “how”, and is something we should continue to pay attention to as the practice spreads beyond Canada.

Since then Québec – previously of no practice – has experimented with territorial acknowledgments to varying degrees of success. I have already mentioned McGill, but UdeM, the Université de Montréal, issued its first acknowledgment in 2018. 

L’Université de Montréal est située là où, bien avant l’établissement des Français, différents peuples autochtones ont interagi les uns avec les autres. Nous souhaitons rendre hommage à ces peuples autochtones, à leurs descendants, ainsi qu’à l’esprit de fraternité qui a présidé à la signature en 1701 de la Grande Paix de Montréal, traité de paix fondateur de rapports pacifiques durables entre la France, ses alliés autochtones et la Confédération haudenosauni (prononciation : O-di-no-sho-ni). L’esprit de fraternité à l’origine de ce traité est un modèle pour notre communauté universitaire.

As settler scholar and author of Distorted Descent: White Claims to Indigenous Identity Darryl Leroux pointed out at the time, “[UdeM’s acknowledgment] highlights many aspects of how the erasure of French (-Canadian) colonialism continues to be a dominant force institutionally” (2018). 

UdeM’s statement declares a common exceptionalism that can be found in Québec, wherein it asserts the Quebécois – via France – established “rapports pacifiques durables” (n.d.), lasting, peaceful relations with Indigenous Nations via the Great Peace of Montréal in 1701. Perhaps the Oka Crisis merely slipped their minds, or doesn’t really count. 

As of 2024, their website mentions that the university sits on “territoire autochtone non cédé par voie de traité”, unceded Indigenous lands, which is a nice addition, but the overarching claim of legitimacy through the Great Peace remains. A statement that acknowledges Québec’s colonial relationship to Indigenous Peoples would be much more impactful and honest, but it is clear certain spaces are not ready to do this.

To avoid singling out Québec, I must offer for your consideration the worst territorial acknowledgment I have ever seen, brought to light by nêhiyaw journalist, Michelle Cyca (2022). 

“Vancouver Island University acknowledges that we are located on the traditional and unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw People, and we thank them for allowing us to live, laugh, love, and learn here” (VIU 2022). 

After a social media panning, the statement was quickly amended to something a little less… vapid.

It is interesting to note where territorial acknowledgments are still mostly absent; namely rural spaces. Rural counties throughout Canada, where there is arguably the most tangible Indigenous presence, do not tend to open council meetings or publish notices acknowledging the traditional territories on which they reside. Within the boundaries of these counties, you will generally find more than one First Nation, but because of Constitutional division of powers, First Nations are holes in county governance. I first brought this absence up in 2016, and while a number of rural school boards have taken up territorial acknowledgments since, local rural governments are still slow to do so.

Yet these would be the spaces in which territorial acknowledgments have the potential to be the most powerful; the settler rural/First Nations divide is huge and plays out in deeply problematic, and all too often violent, ways. Private property ownership in rural counties is settler colonialism writ large, yet overshadowed by the overwhelming pull of large urban centres. Relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in rural and remote areas tend to be strained, when not entirely non-existent. The issue of “whose territory are we farming/ranching/cottaging” on becomes much more uncomfortable and immediate than “on whose territory is this shwank hotel, where we are having our union AGA”. That level of removal from the land allows territorial acknowledgments to occur in a more theoretical way.

Rural Canada personifies ‘the two solitudes’ of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in a way that is difficult to understand from urban settings. These two solitudes exist on lands that supply the bulk of resources extracted to support the urban south, meaning they also experience the effects of resource extraction in ways urban residents do not. When gravel aggregate is strip mined, when fracking exploration is undertaken, when large scale pig feedlots are proposed, rural Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are living with the direct consequences including clouds of silica dust, damage to aquifers, smell, noise, run-off, and increased presence of shift workers unaffiliated with local communities, and the violence that brings. Rather than being a situation that unifies Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples however, each community is accustomed to working in isolation from the other.

The decision by counties to allow such developments only rarely takes into account local First Nations, and only when legislation demands it – i.e. when development occurs adjacent to a reserve. What I am trying to get at here is that ignoring First Nations presence in rural areas is normalized, deeply ingrained, and central to rural settler governance. Urban centres take up relatively little physical space in this country; it is easy to even unconsciously justify that space and the density of the population compared to, say, owning 160 acres of land on which one family lives. I do not think that territorial acknowledgement in these areas could exist as merely theoretical frameworks as they can in more urban settings because any acknowledgment implicates the land in an inescapable way.

This brings me back to the question of…why are people acknowledging territory in the first place? When mostly urban institutions and circles are making these acknowledgments, who are they thinking of? Urban Indigenous populations? Rural and remote First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities? Is there a feeling of reaching out to or desiring partnerships with these communities? What of the non-Indigenous communities also found in rural and remote spaces? Are they implicated in urban-based territorial acknowledgments, or are they as ignored by their urban counterparts as they in turn ignore local Indigenous communities?

I have a lot more to say on this, but for now, I want to note that I think rural/Indigenous alliances have the potential to be the most transformative relationships in this country, even as they remain the least likely to occur.

Into the beyond

If we think of territorial acknowledgments as sites of potential disruption, they can be transformative acts that to some extent undo Indigenous erasure and create more welcoming spaces for Indigenous people to be in. I believe this is true as long as these acknowledgments discomfit both those speaking and hearing the words. The fact of Indigenous presence should force non-Indigenous peoples to confront their own place on these lands. I would like to see territorial acknowledgments happening in spaces where they are currently absent, particularly in rural and remote areas and within the governance structures of settlers.

However as we are already seeing, territorial acknowledgments can become stripped of their disruptive power through repetition. The purpose cannot merely be to inform an ignorant public that Indigenous peoples exist, and that Canada has a history of colonialism. 

I wanted to come back to Bob Joseph’s suggestion that territorial acknowledgements are a part of Indigenous protocol. I think if we understand that to be true, at least to some extent, then we must also understand that the protocols he invokes are much deeper than verbal acknowledgments, and inter-human relationships. This can perhaps guide us into the ‘beyond’; the space beyond acknowledgment. Stopping at territorial acknowledgments is unacceptable.

Often, territorial acknowledgments characterize non-Indigenous peoples as guests. Are guests only those people who are invited? Or are they anyone who finds themselves within the physical territory of their hosts? Why guests and not invaders? To what extent was permission actually sought to be in these territories, and conduct the affairs that Indigenous nations are thanked for hosting? What if an Indigenous person stood up and revoked that assumed permission?

I think we need to start imagining a constellation of relationships that must be entered into beyond territorial acknowledgments. Great, that’s awesome you know you’re on – for example – Treaty 6 territory. That’s great you acknowledge that perhaps the Indigenous view of that treaty, that the land was not surrendered, is correct.  Perhaps you understand the tension of your presence as illegitimate, but don’t know how to deal with it beyond naming it. Maybe now it is time to start learning about your obligations as a guest in this territory. What are the Indigenous protocols involved in being a guest, what are your responsibilities? What responsibilities do your hosts have towards you, and are you making space for those responsibilities to be exercised? To what extent are your events benefiting your hosts?

In 2021, Theresa Stewart-Ambo (Luiseño/Tongva) and K. Wayne Yang wrote an article “Beyond Land Acknowledgment in Settler Institutions” that in great part interacted with the original 2016 version of this piece. They suggest a precursor to the guest/host dynamic, “suggesting that settlers should [first] view themselves as visitors” (34). They point out that the verb “visit” can be used in a social sense, as well as “to inflict someone”, an alternate definition that “implies some complicity in colonialism, in harm inflicted, and also refutes claims to permanence and to proprietorship over Indigenous lands” (34). Powerfully, they then ask: 

“What would it mean for a settler speaker of a land acknowledgment to say, ‘I am a visitor, and I hope to become a proper guest’?”

Regardless of the metaphors we use to describe our relationships or our positionality on these lands, it is imperative that we begin to align our actions with our words. 

I’m not saying Indigenous people want to be at your AGA, or your university lecture, or your Dean’s meeting – maybe they do though, have you asked? What I am saying is that all Indigenous nations have specific expectations of guests/visitors, and of hosts, and so far non-Indigenous peoples have not been very good at finding out what those are. I think this needs to be the next step. It requires having actual conversations with Indigenous communities, saying things like “we want to be better guests/visitors, how do we do that according to your laws and hey by the way, what are your laws” and being prepared to hear the answers, even those that are uncomfortable like “give us the land back”. I mean damn…maybe your huge ass union needs to fork over some of the land its executives have squirreled away on their massive salaries as a gesture of good guesting/visiting. That could be a real thing that could happen.

Speaking of real things that could happen…

This isn’t just hopeful nonsense – there are many concrete steps that can be taken beyond territorial acknowledgments. Ontario launching the Grade 11 course “English: Understanding Contemporary First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Voices” was a good step, but the largest school boards in that province making it mandatory is better.

Or divesting from investments in coal, oil, and gas in a move that actively decreases financial support for the ongoing militarized violence against Wet’suwet’en land defenders – as Concordia University in Montréal pledged to do by 2025. It doesn’t need to stop there – students across Canada are insisting for example that their institutions cut ties with Royal Bank (and others) who in one breath offer scholarships to “Indigenous, Black, and all youth” then turn around and pour billions into the very Coastal GasLink pipeline that is being rammed through Wet’suwet’en territory (Integlia 2022).

Concordia took further concrete steps and began offering free undergrad tuition to First Nations and Inuit on whose traditional territories Québec has imposed itself (Cadorette 2024). Notice they correctly did not extend this to Métis – as Métis do not have historic communities in Québec – and Concordia has been very intentional about who should benefit. This initiative does not erase the many structural barriers that prevent First Nations and Inuit in Québec from accessing post-secondary education, but it’s on the road to the “beyond” I’m invoking.

So too is the Gaayhllxid/Gíihlagalgang “Rising Tide” Haida Title Lands Agreement, signed in April of 2024 between the Haida Nation and the Province of British Columbia, where that provincial government essentially skipped the standard Canadian practice of a protracted legal battle, and agreed to recognize that the Haida Nation has Aboriginal Title to all of Haida Gwaii. The only other Aboriginal Title land in Canada, also in British Columbia, was recognized in 2014 by the Supreme Court of Canada and covers a small portion of lands claimed by the Tsihqot’in Nation. It’s too early to see just how this will play out for the Haida in real terms, but this sure as heck is some beyonding!

Moving beyond territorial acknowledgments means asking hard questions about what needs to be done once we’re all aware of Indigenous presence. It requires that we remain uncomfortable, and it means making concrete, disruptive change. How can you be in good relationship with Indigenous peoples, with non-human beings, with the land and water? No ideas? Well, it’s a good thing Indigenous Peoples are still here, because our legal orders address all of those questions.

So let’s get to it!

*This is an updated version of Beyond Territorial Acknowledgements which was originally published in 2016. That version has been read and taught and discussed for the past eight years, and I thought it was high time to update it – especially as a bunch of instructors are linking to it in their classes!

REFERENCES

Bisset, Kevin. 2021. “N.B. Government Employees Ordered to Stop Making Indigenous Land Acknowledgments.” CTV News Atlantic, October 15, 2021. https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/n-b-government-employees-ordered-to-stop-making-indigenous-land-acknowledgments-1.5624555

Cadorette, Johanne. 2024. “Concordia to Offer Tuition Waivers to First Nations and Inuit Students From Across Quebec.” Concordia University, August 28, 2024. https://www.concordia.ca/news/stories/2024/08/28/concordia-to-offer-tuition-waivers-to-first-nations-and-inuit-students-from-across-quebec.html

CAUT (Canadian Association of University Teachers). 2017. “Guide to Acknowledging First Peoples & Traditional Territory.” Last updated September 2017. https://www.caut.ca/sites/default/files/caut-guide-to-acknowledging-first-peoples-and-traditional-territory-2017-09.pdf

Cyca, Michelle (@michellecyca). 2022. “What’s the worst land acknowledgment you’ve ever seen? i don’t know that anything will ever top this:” Twitter/X. May 13, 2022, 1:35 p.m. https://twitter.com/michellecyca/status/1525198115304636416

Destiny’s Child. 1999. “Say My Name.” Track 1-12 on The Writing’s On the Wall. Columbia, compact disc.

(FNHA) First Nations Health Authority. n.d. Territory Acknowledgments. Vancouver: First Nations Health Authority. Accessed October 20, 2023. https://www.fnha.ca/Documents/FNHA-Territory-Acknowledgements-Information-Booklet.pdf

Fontaine, Tim. 2017. “Land Acknowlegement Malfunctions, Causing Land to be Briefly Returned to First Nations.” Walking Eagle News, December 19, 2017. https://walkingeaglenews.com/2017/12/19/land-acknowledgement-malfunctions-causing-land-to-be-briefly-returned-to-first-nations/

Government of Alberta. 2021. First Nations Reserves and Metis Settlements. April 8, 2021. https://open.alberta.ca/publications/first-nations-reserves-and-metis-settlements-map

Government of British Columbia. 2024. Agreement on Haida Aboriginal Title. Last updated September 9, 2024. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/natural-resource-stewardship/consulting-with-first-nations/first-nations-negotiations/first-nations-a-z-listing/haida-nation-council-of/haida-title-agreement

Government of Ontario. n.d. English: Understanding Contemporary First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Voices. Department of Education. Accessed November 21, 2024. https://www.dcp.edu.gov.on.ca/en/curriculum/secondary-first-nations-metis-and-inuit-studies/courses/nbe3u/introduction.

Integlia, Olivia. 2022. “Concordia University: Champion of Greenwashing.” The Link Newspaper, October 25, 2022. https://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/concordia-university-champion-of-greenwashing

Joseph, Bob. 2019. “First Nation Protocol on Traditional Territory.” July 27, 2019. http://www.ictinc.ca/first-nation-protocol-on-traditional-territory.

K, Sarah. 2014. “An Introduction to Settler Colonialism at UBC: Part Three.” The Talon, October 13, 2014. http://thetalon.ca/an-introduction-to-settler-colonialism-at-ubc-part-three/.

KAIROS. 2015. “Territorial Acknowledgment as an Act of Reconciliation.” August 6, 2015. http://www.kairoscanada.org/territorial-acknowledgment.

Kaur, Jasreet. 2015. “Decolonize McGill: Why McGill should recognize the Indigenous land on which it stands.” The McGill Daily.” March 16, 2015. http://www.mcgilldaily.com/2015/03/decolonize-mcgill/.

Khelsilem. 2016. “Khelsilem’s Tips for Acknowledging Territory 1.0.” Liberated Yet? Accessed September 21, 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20170427132343/http://liberatedyet.tumblr.com/post/106089801816/khelsilems-tips-for-acknowledging-territory-10.

Leroux, Darryl. 2018. “1- The Université de Montréal publicly released its territorial land acknowledgment a few weeks ago … and it highlights many aspects of how the erasure of French (-Canadian) colonialism continues to be a dominant force institutionally.” Twitter/X, April 25, 2018, 3:04 p.m. https://twitter.com/DarrylLeroux/status/989248740388110336 (I think he may have deactivated his account which is why including the full text in the citation is so darn useful!)

Lila Asher, Joe Curnow & Amil Davis (2018). The Limits of Settlers’ Territorial Acknowledgments. Curriculum Inquiry, 48:3, 316-334. DOI: 10.1080/03626784.2018.1468211.

Matsunaga, Jennifer. 2016. “Thinking Outloud about the Guide to Acknowledging Traditional Territory.” Reconciling Truths and Accounting for the Past, May 27, 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20220218150158/https://jennifermatsunaga.com/2016/05/27/thinking-outloud-about-the-guide-to-acknowledging-traditional-territory/

Martin, Shannon. 2016. “Why Toronto Public Schools Now Pay ‘Very Necessary’ Daily Tribute to Indigenous Territories.” CBC News. September 22, 2016. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tdsb-indigenous-land-1.3773050.

(RBC) Royal Bank of Canada. n.d. “Land Acknowledgement.” Accessed October 20, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20220125182442/https://www.tdsb.on.ca/Portals/0/docs/HRO%20Report_March%202021.pdf

Stewart-Ambo, Theresa and K. Wayne Yang. 2021. “Beyond Land Acknowledgment in Settler Institutions.” Social Text 146 39(1). DOI 10.1215/01642472-8750076.

“Territorial Acknowledgements: Going Beyond the Script.” 2021. Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Alberta, May 4, 2021. Youtube video, 13:02. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXYhBml2c2I.

(TDSB) Toronto District School Board. 2021. “Human Rights Annual Report 2018 – 2020.” March 2021. https://www.tdsb.on.ca/Portals/0/docs/HRO%20Report_March%202021.pdf

(UdeM) Université de Montréal. n.d. “Reconnaissance du territoire autochtone.” Accessed October 20, 2023. https://www.umontreal.ca/en/indigenouspeoples/reconnaissance/

VIU (Vancouver Island University). 2022. “Access to Excellence.” Archived on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, May 13, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20220513195246/https://adm.viu.ca/donors/access-excellence

Wildes, Rima, Aarong Duong, Linc Kesler, Howard Ramos. 2017. “Canadian University Acknowledgment of Indigenous Lands, Treaties, and Peoples.” Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, 54(1): 89 – 120. DOI: 10.1111/cars.12140