Loved this Becka - “The goal of Indigenous sovereignty is always at the centre. Or: doing a land acknowledgement and just going about your day is not the one.” 👏👏👏👏 yesss I think about this so much. How do you move on from the “I’m
Privileged and I know” statement that doesn’t actually hold depth and a commitment to use that privilege or disrupt that privilege or unpack that privilege? I think about that a lot. Thank you for this beautiful post.
Yes totally! We were talking about it at the farm recently, how often we hear someone give a land acknowledgement and then it is basically followed with "and here's what I'm doing with this land" which feels like such a token to soothe our own egos rather than wading into the more complicated work of disrupting it.
I've been looking into my family's history, and a lot of my ancestors were brought over to NZ on reduced fairs, under contract to clear a certain amount of rainforest per year. I looked up the place where my father's paternal grandparents lived when they got married and it looks like it was freshly confiscated land. These two things are just the tip of the iceberg. I don't really know how one balances out the harm one's direct ancestors were present for and participating in. I do believe you can never sit through too many Treaty of Waitangi classes (and I have sat through many).
Agreed, I think it is long and ongoing or forever evolving work to balance it out or I guess come back into some kind of right relationship. I've been looking into my family history more closely recently and it has often come with the heartbreak that more often than not they went from colonised (predominantly Irish settlers, some on convict ships) to colonisers. It is a really difficult needle to thread to find ways to be with that tension!
This is fantastic, thank you so much. Lots to think about, and lots helping me to identify my own vague qualms about gardening practices/cottagecore tendencies.
Loved this Becka - “The goal of Indigenous sovereignty is always at the centre. Or: doing a land acknowledgement and just going about your day is not the one.” 👏👏👏👏 yesss I think about this so much. How do you move on from the “I’m
Privileged and I know” statement that doesn’t actually hold depth and a commitment to use that privilege or disrupt that privilege or unpack that privilege? I think about that a lot. Thank you for this beautiful post.
Yes totally! We were talking about it at the farm recently, how often we hear someone give a land acknowledgement and then it is basically followed with "and here's what I'm doing with this land" which feels like such a token to soothe our own egos rather than wading into the more complicated work of disrupting it.
I've been looking into my family's history, and a lot of my ancestors were brought over to NZ on reduced fairs, under contract to clear a certain amount of rainforest per year. I looked up the place where my father's paternal grandparents lived when they got married and it looks like it was freshly confiscated land. These two things are just the tip of the iceberg. I don't really know how one balances out the harm one's direct ancestors were present for and participating in. I do believe you can never sit through too many Treaty of Waitangi classes (and I have sat through many).
Agreed, I think it is long and ongoing or forever evolving work to balance it out or I guess come back into some kind of right relationship. I've been looking into my family history more closely recently and it has often come with the heartbreak that more often than not they went from colonised (predominantly Irish settlers, some on convict ships) to colonisers. It is a really difficult needle to thread to find ways to be with that tension!
*fares. oops
This is fantastic, thank you so much. Lots to think about, and lots helping me to identify my own vague qualms about gardening practices/cottagecore tendencies.
This was so good