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2023 AISL Awardee Meeting: Reflections on a Non-Land Acknowledgment

In our morning address at the 2023 AISL Awardee Meeting, the REVISE Team chose not to give a land acknowledgment. Selene González-Carrillo led a discussion and reflection among the REVISE team on how land acknowledgments are presented and the indigenous voices that critically interrogated the purpose of land acknowledgments in the first place.

Read Selene's speech below, developed in support with Lisette Torres-Gerald, Tiffany Smith, and Eric Jolly. 

We ask you to deeply consider what and where your practices and relationship are in relation to the indigenous communities in your area. A great place to start is the Native Land Digital space. Don’t forget to share your reflections and ideas with us by emailing: revise@informalscience.org with the subject line “My Land Acknowledgement Reflection.”

Reimagining Equity and Values in Informal STEM Education (REVISE) Center Land Acknowledgement Reflection

As official hosts and as a newly formed equity center - in cooperation with NSF - we began our planning for the 2023 AISL Awardee Meeting with an awareness that we would want to have a land acknowledgment at this gathering. However, we quickly began to deconstruct that notion in real time. We looked for indigenous perspectives on land acknowledgements and listened deeply to indigenous voices that critically interrogated the purpose of Land Acknowledgements in the first place. How had these statements lost their power to make visible the open wounds of colonialization, genocide, forced displacement, slavery, and racism? How have they devolved to just being statements that toe the line between being performative and hollow? How can we, those that seek to give land acknowledgements to honor tribal nations, move beyond words and into equitable steps that respond to the atrocities that have taken place on the land that we stand on today? Is it enough to know who was hurt and where?

Many of us found ourselves in a state of discomfort, from the positionality of being an equity center composed primarily of Women and People of Color (POC). We took our discomfort to various meetings where we talked openly about our responsibility to our indigenous siblings and the limitations we faced as a team to authentically enact a proper, honorable land acknowledgement. We created a digital space, as a remote team, to continue to engage with learning material on native issues, but more importantly, we consulted with our indigenous advisors and local tribal leaders about how to give a land acknowledgement. We eventually arrived at a consensus: We are not prepared, nor do we have the authority to speak on behalf of the native people of this land - the Anacostan, Nacotchtank, Piscataway and Pamunkey people. 

We recognize that in order to be authentic in the way we approach conversations with and about the tribal communities whose land we currently benefit from, we need to move at the speed of relationship building with humility. We need to establish mechanisms that push us beyond performative gestures. 

Specifically, we ask ourselves: How can we, as an equity center, REVISE the conversation on equity in informal STEM education (ISE) as it relates to engaging and collaborating with indigenous ISE researchers, practitioners, and community members? Here are some questions we have considered and continue to grapple with:

  • How do we better amplify and center indigenous perspectives in ISE?
  • How do we, as an equity resource center, push through structural barriers and encourage institutions to adopt and foster greater power sharing?
  • How can we actively promote and support indigenous leadership and expertise in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of REVISE’s future work in our communities of practice or ISE Equity Visionaries series, with Indigenous partners ensuring that their knowledge is central to the process?

We’d like to share some of our reflections that we wrote after listening to the For the People Podcast’s segment on the Land Back Movement. The podcast conversation took place between Nick Tilsen and Madona Thunder Hawk and they discussed how generations of Indigenous people have worked across politics and places.

  • “It was deeply affirming to hear the notion that activism does not require generations to wait for certain voices, or even a certain time. Activism to address injustice is an inherent responsibility of all.”
  • “I also liked when Madonna said, ‘When people are ready, things will move.’ She reminded me that the struggle is lifelong and that there will be ups and downs in the movement toward liberation. You just have to be patient, prepare, and continue the work even when it seems like no one else is doing anything.”
  • “Native thinkers remind me that a peaceful space isn’t the same as a liberated space.”

Now, we ask you, our reader, to deeply consider what and where your practices and relationship are in relation to the indigenous communities in your area. A great place to start is the Native Land Digital space. Don’t forget to share your reflections and ideas with us by emailing: revise@informalscience.org with the subject line “My Land Acknowledgement Reflection.”

Thank you for gifting us with your attention, and for bearing witness to our hope for a future convening where we have been in good relationship long enough with local tribal nations that we would humbly earn a genuine acknowledgement.