Insights Undergraduate Journal in Political Science

Land Acknowledgement:

_{Since time immemorial, the Treaty 7 Nations of this territory have lived in active and responsible partnership with the land and its more-than-human beings. Alongside settlers, the Indigenous signatories of Treaty 7 comprise the Siksikaitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy), including the Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai First Nations, the Tsuut’ina Nation, and the Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda, including the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Goodstoney First Nations. This land is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta, citizens of districts 5 & 6. What is now called Calgary is also known as Moh’kins’tsis to the Siksikaitsitapi, Wîchîspa to the Îyârhe Nakoda, and Guts’ists’i to the Tsuut’ina. Anishnaabe and Potowatami scholar Robin Wall Kimmerer calls for us to acknowledge that in our current world, “[i]t’s not just land that is broken, but more importantly, our relationship to land” (2013, p. 9) As such, she encourages all peoples to engage with the gift economy of the natural world, where the gifts of land—like berries, sweetgrass, breathable air and drinkable water—are offered us through no merit of our own, and regardless of settler or Indigenous status.}

_{It is incumbent upon us each to reconcile with the obligations implicit in our land acknowledgements, to engage in a responsible and attentive relationship with the land that sustains us, as well as with the peoples who have known it longest and loved it best. We are all treaty people and all equally bound to the covenant of reciprocity and mutual care in which the original treaties were signed. As we go forward, let us each commit due consideration and action to upholding our treaty obligations in thought, word, and deed and become good treaty people.}