Embedded Files
Session Objective: to value the various capabilities held by oft-overlooked actors, including non-human beings and beliefs
Review: the Course Slides, summarising our conversation on theories of power and agency.
Session 6A Class Slides.pdfRemember: what we have learned from other marginalised communities and their philosophical critiques of power through this “Theory at a Glance” overview.
At a Glance_ Agency.pdfShe asks me to kill the spider.
Instead, I get the most
peaceful weapons I can find.
I take a cup and a napkin.
I catch the spider, put it outside
and allow it to walk away.
If I am ever caught in the wrong place
at the wrong time, just being alive
and not bothering anyone,
I hope I am greeted
with the same kind of
mercy.
A spoken word poet of Belizean decent, Rudy Francisco was born, raised, and still resides in San Diego, California. He spoke at open mics in his neighbourhood until they were closed due to gentrification, at which point he teamed up with a group of local poets and activists (‘Collective Purpose’) to launch Elevated.
At the age of 21, Rudy completed his BA in Psychology and decided to continue his education by pursuing a MA in Organizational Studies. As an artist, Rudy Francisco is an amalgamation of social critique, introspection, honesty and humour. He uses personal narratives to discuss the politics of race, class, gender, and religion while simultaneously pinpointing and reinforcing the interconnected nature of human existence.
Consider: how Indigenous Nations and Land are/aren’t recognised by institutions like Syracuse University through actions such as Land Acknowledgements or the new artwork installation on home campus. We’ll be picking up on questions of Land Acknowledgement and your place mapping from Learning Log 5 in class during Week 6.
In the United States today, Land acknowledgements are often completed as performative acts. But their origins exist in long-standing Indigenous traditions of honouring the Land itself. In the words of Amy Desjarlais (Wabishka Kakaki Zhaawshko Shkeezhgokwe, Knowledge Keeper):
“In our culture, we do Land acknowledgments every day. We do Land acknowledgments when we wake up, when we breathe in and out, when we take care of ourselves. It is the Land that teaches us and provides for us, and so we do Land acknowledgement every day...
“When we gather in public spaces, I’ve seen that Land acknowledgement is being done as a political acknowledgement of the people – and often the Land itself is is not part of that...”
Compare: this telling of the Land we know as Alberta, Canada, with the Land Acknowledgements you have seen performed by Syracuse University or other settler institutions in the United States.
read transcript
Long before settlers began performing political Land Acknowledgements in partial recognition of Indigenous peoples, Native communities conducted Land Acknowledgements to acknowledge the Land herself.
This 6-minute video is an example of Land Acknowledgement from Calgary, Canada. Treaty 7 was an agreement between the British Crown and several First Nation band governments in what is known today as Alberta. The treaty was signed in English at the Blackfoot Crossing of Bow River in 1877.
What is Land acknowledgement?
Those of us that are continuing our oral history are blessed.
What we shared, that was told from way back.
Many, many years ago my great-uncle asked my grandfather: “How long have we been here?”
He relayed a story about carrying a way of life as Niitsitapi, the Blackfoot-speaking people.
The prairie region was dominated by the Prairie Grizzly Bear. The Prairie Grizzly Bear said, “You have to make a treaty with everything in this Prairie Land: the Animals, the Birds, the Fish, the Water, the Hills, the Rocks. They’re all living beings.” He said that “I will move to the southern region”.
And so, they became Aapátohsipikáni, the People of the Plains, of the Open Country.
We were part of the ecosystem. We were not masters of it. The Buffalo, and the Moose, and the Elk, and the Antelope, and the Deer, and the Grass, and the Trees were more than us.
Well, we were raised to believe that everything has a spirit, and that everything around us is alive, and has a purpose.
We praise Creator, Giver of Life. We give thanks to Mother Earth.
You know, after we grow up from our biological mothers, the Earth becomes our caregiver. Everything that we need is there.
And we’re supposed to honour the Creator with all our life, and we’re supposed to look after the gift of the Land that he gave us to live on.
For us, the Land tells us the story. I mean, it’s just story after story: oh, this happened here; this happened here; this happened over here.
[Makhabn, Bow River]: The story is Na’pi, the Old Man, standing with his bow, and his elbows on this side.
That was how our warriors pictured the landscape.
All the tributaries run into The Bow. It’s the Mother of our Water that flows through.
People came there; they asked, “What’s the name of this river?” They said, “We cut our bow from the chokecherry trees; they’re strong and powerful. We named this river The Bow, Makhabn.”
I was born and raised in a road allowance, a strip of land that the farmers didn’t want and the government didn’t have no use for. Métis were just out on their own. We didn’t belong anywhere. In Treaty 7 Territory, I’m accepted. I’m something, and I’m with my people.
Because you’re in the territory of your ancestors, this is home: something that we pass on to our children, and to our grandchildren.
This Land has to be acknowledged. The people that took care of this Land for a long time have to be acknowledged. You know, at least find the truth about us.
I’m a residential school survivor, but it’s up to me to have courage, and go back, and learn the ways of my people. The elders will say, “I pray that the young people will not forget the Creator, the true acknowledgment of the Land every day.”
We honour our ancestors by acknowledging Treaty 7 Territory. We acknowledge the Treaty 7 Nations: the Piikani First Nation, the Siksika First Nation, the Kainai First Nation, the Stoney Nakoda First Nations, and the Tsuut’ina First Nation. We acknowledge the ancestral territory of the Siksikaitsitapi, the Blackfoot Confederacy, and the home of Métis Nation, Number Three.
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