Monday was Indigenous People鈥檚 Day: a day to celebrate Native American history, resilience and sovereignty and recognize the continuing legacy of colonization.
For some institutions, that can mean acknowledging that its land once belonged to Native peoples, but experts say some well-intentioned statements can actually do harm.
That's why the Association of Indigenous Anthropologists wants a hiatus of 鈥渓and acknowledgements.鈥�
Richard Meyers is an anthropologist who鈥檚 been with the association since its inception and directs graduate studies at Oglala-Lakota College in South Dakota. He says acknowledgement is good, but can also be a fall-back that lacks real change.
鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 really dig at the heart of the matter of what鈥檚 going on. What are the inequities and the injustices?鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 almost like a politically correct attempt at addressing a wrong by way of a quick fix.鈥�
Meyers says South Dakota State University has gone further than a statement, putting money earned from its land ownership towards Native student education. But he says such institutions need to give tribal and Indigenous groups a seat at decision-making tables and power to make choices over that land.
Short of that, Meyers said, those "good intentions don鈥檛 necessarily manifest into the reality of the intention, but transform into a different agenda.鈥�
A group of three anthropologists recently reasons why the land acknowledgements don鈥檛 go far enough in The Conversation.
They said the acknowledgements can make colonization seem like ancient history that doesn鈥檛 still affect people today. They wrote that the statements also often fail to acknowledge how much trauma and death came with taking that land.
鈥淏ecause non-Indigenous people are generally unaware of this trauma, land acknowledgments are often heard by Indigenous peoples as the denial of that trauma,鈥� they wrote. 鈥淭his perspective is reinforced by a tendency to cast Indigenous peoples as part of prehistory, suggesting that the trauma of dispossession, if it happened at all, did not happen to real or wholly human people.鈥�
Ultimately, that group says land acknowledgements aren鈥檛 a bad thing when done correctly. But they need to respect Indigenous nations who claim the land, accurately portray how the land was taken and chart a path forward. They say returning land should be part of that discussion.
鈥淭here are many creative ways to take restorative measures and even to give land back, such as by returning U.S. national parks to the appropriate tribes. Following from this, land acknowledgments must reveal a sincere commitment to respecting and enhancing Indigenous sovereignty,鈥� they wrote.
鈥淚f an acknowledgment is discomforting and triggers uncomfortable conversations versus self-congratulation, it is likely on the right track.鈥�
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Nevada Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, 九色网 in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the .
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