These resources were curated by the facilitators and participants of the FLO MicroCourse: Acknowledging Traditional Indigenous Lands as this microcourse evolved. 

Learn More about Acknowledgements 

Native Land Digital - An Indigenous-led Canadian non-profit educational organization, incorporated in December 2018. https://native-land.ca/ 

Use the interactive map to learn which Indigenous lands you live on now - or have lived on in the past -  languages spoken there, and the location of various historical treaties. 

The Territory Acknowledgement page on this site provides information on the basics of why and how to acknowledge along with a variety of resources from the Coast Salish Network, UBC, CBC and others. 

To get a sense of evolving practices, take 10 minutes or so to read the Beyond territorial acknowledgements post by âpihtawikosisân (Chelsea Vowel. She proposes we explore beyond institutional standardization and expectations, because best practices must evolve over time through engagement, and suggests we ask:

  • What is the speaker's intention? How do Indigenous people perceive their intention?
  • What are the Indigenous protocols for guest and host responsibilities where you are?
  • How can you be in good relationship with the Indigenous peoples, wildlife, land, and water where you live? 

Reconciliation Canada, Feb 4, 2019. Cultural Teachings: Welcome to Territory and Land Acknowledgements. This Indigenous-led charitable organization carries out its work across Canada from the unceded territories of the Coast Salish and Kwakwaka’wakw people. Tim Manuel, Cultural Advisor and Public Engagement Lead, shares information on the cultural meaning and protocols involved in giving land and territory acknowledgement in this blog post: http://reconciliationcanada.ca/cultural-teachings-welcome-to-territory-land-acknowledgments/  

Whose Land. An interactive website that can be used for learning about the traditional land or territory where you are, land acknowledgements, and treaties or other agreements signed across Canada. The developers worked closely with the Native Land team to build on their work. https://www.whose.land/en/

Treaty Maps

First Nation communities

Indigenous Services Canada. First Nations of BC (indicates where the 300+ reserves are located across the province). Download link courtesy of Northern Health. https://www.northernhealth.ca/sites/northern_health/files/health-professionals/community-health-information/maps/documents/first-nations-bc-map.pdf

Métis homeland

Teaching & Learning Philosophy

  • Ermine, W. (2010). What is Ethical Space? (7:18) 
     "... The idea of ethical space starts to open ideas for dialogue, e.g. where we start to take control of visioning our humanity and conversations again. How do we construct a world or society that’s based on our humanness, not prescriptions from institutions or systems that try to run our lives? ... I think as we explore further into the ethical space, we come to a common grounding, a point where we can say, ‘oh yeah, I can see you as a human now."
  • St. George, S. and Wulff, D. (2018). Discourses for Fostering Generative Classroom Dialogue. Conference on Postsecondary Learning and Teaching, University of Calgary. (Personal communication). Grounding ideas are that creating safe learning spaces is everyone's responsibility and safe spaces depend on ethical behaviour vs. knee jerk emotional reactions. This involves willingness to consider others' well-being as equally important to your own. Some ways to navigate difficult conversations include asking questions to clarify others' comments, respectfully sharing your own views, and/or exploring other stories and potential ways of understanding differences. Perhaps from a lens of pedagogical values for care, diversity, community, and/or justice?
     In Canada, cultural humility has been defined as: “a process of self-reflection to understand personal and systemic
     biases and to develop and maintain respectful processes and relationships based on mutual trust. [It] involves
     humbly acknowledging oneself as a learner when it comes to understanding another’s experience (First Nations
     Health Authority, 2019). http://www.fnha.ca/wellness/cultural-humility.

Contemporary examples of territorial acknowledgements

Indigenization of Post-Secondary Education

  • BCcampus Indigenization Pulling Together Series (2018) - A set of professional learning guides tailored to support various learning groups including:  Foundations; Curriculum Developers; Teachers and Instructors; Leaders and Administrators; and Front-Line Staff, Student Services, and Advisors. https://bccampus.ca/projects/indigenization/indigenization-guides/
  • Julie Vaudrin-Charette (2019). Melting the Cultural Iceberg in Indigenizing Higher Education: Shifts to Accountability in Times of Reconciliation. In New Directions in Teaching and Learning. Special Issue: Learning at Intercultural Intersections: Indigenization, Internationalization and Intercultural Learning. Spring 2019, Issue 157. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15360768/current  Interesting view of positionality, i.e cultural and disciplinary self-location.
  •  Marcella LaFever (2016). Switching from Bloom to the Medicine Wheel: Creating Learning Outcomes that support Indigenous ways of knowing in post-secondary education. In Intercultural Education: Learning at Intercultural Intersections, 27:5, https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ceji20/27/5 Interesting presentation of ways to integrate ethical space and perspectives in learning design.  

Art

  • Perpetual Salish: Coast Salish Art in the Classroom (2016).  Here you will find a map by Deborah Reade from an art exhibit that shows the diversity of communities within ‘Coast Salish.’ One great thing about Deborah’s map is that it shows the Indigenous familial connections across the Salish Sea down to the Columbia River, rather than focusing on national borders. http://uvac.uvic.ca/gallery/salishcurriculum/coast-salish-territories-maps/

Civic Politics



Last modified: Friday, 31 May 2019, 11:08 PM