Along the Road podcast delves into the meaning behind land acknowledgement practices

In its March 5 episode, “Nourish: Acknowledging the Original Inhabitants of the Land,” the Along the Road podcast offered a glimpse into the deeper meaning and history behind what has become an increasingly common practice in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.): land acknowledgements.

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The episode featured a conversation with the Rev. Lauren Sanders, who is an ordained PC(USA) minister, an Indigenous person, and serves as Indigenous Care Chaplain for an organization called First United in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Sanders also serves on the General Assembly Committee on Representation. She was interviewed by host Martha Miller, who is a ruling elder and certified Christian educator and is the manager for ministry education and support in the Interim Unified Agency.

A land acknowledgement is a formal statement offered at the beginning of a gathering that recognizes the Indigenous peoples who originally inhabited the land where an event or gathering is taking place.

At the 223rd gathering, held in 2018, the General Assembly of the PC(USA) voted to include land acknowledgements at the beginning of all official meetings and events. Virtual PC(USA) gatherings have often invited participants to do land acknowledgements of their own, recognized the Indigenous inhabits of the lands from which they are calling in.

In keeping with this PC(USA) practice, Miller included a land acknowledgement at the beginning of a Leader Formation webinar she facilitated for ruling elders and deacons on March 6. After recognizing the Anishinaabe people and the Saginaw Chippewa Indian tribe who historically resided on the land where she was, Miller invited participants to type in the chat space and recognize the Indigenous inhabitants of the land where they were joining from.

The webinar was part of the reason Miller wanted to have Sanders featured on an episode of Along the Road. The episode was part of the podcast’s “Nourish” series, which — like the Leader Formation webinar — are particularly aimed at ruling elders and deacons. Miller wanted her conversation with Sanders to provide some background and depth of meaning around the practice of land acknowledgement.

“I think there’s a danger, particularly when there’s something that has passed through the General Assembly, that it could become a box to check, rather than something that comes from the heart,” Miller said in the episode. Indeed, authentically heartfelt intention is a key part of doing a land acknowledgement, Sanders explained.

“How and when you give your land acknowledgement, how that looks, where that is, and how we all engage with it, does need to come from our heart,” she said. She went on to explain that there are no formal parameters about how one might include a land acknowledgement in a worship service, for example — it could be an opening, a prayer, a confession, a response to the sermon, a benediction or something else. The important part, she said, is truly recognizing that the land you’re on was once inhabited and tenderly cared for by Indigenous peoples and that those people were forcibly moved and the land was stolen from them.

At the outset of the episode, Sanders offered her own greeting in Potowatomi, which is the Indigenous nation she belongs to. While she is Indigenous herself, Sanders lives and serves on lands that were historically inhabited by other Indigenous nations who she acknowledged in her greeting, referring to those nations with the names they use to refer to themselves:

“Bozho jayek. Lauren ndeshnekas. Ote ke xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam - how the Musqueam write their name),  Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation — how the Squamish Nation writes their name), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh — how the Tsleil-Waututh write their name) ejedayan.”

As the conversation unfolded, Sanders clarified that a land acknowledgement is part of a larger ritual.

“My Indigenous community … and the Indigenous communities that I am familiar with have a ceremony that is called a welcome. A welcome is a two-part ceremony, where one half is the welcome of the host nations — the peoples’ lands that we’re on. And the land acknowledgement is the second part. It’s acknowledgement that we are all guests on that land.”

Sanders further explained that in Vancouver, she would be considered a guest on the land and, therefore, would offer a land acknowledgement. However, in places where the Potowatomi nation has historically resided, Sanders could offer a welcome as a host. The hosts are always the Indigenous communities on whose ancestral or territorial lands an event is taking place, no matter who is in charge of the event. And everyone at the event is a guest — even those leading it — other than those Indigenous communities.

Sanders compared the two-part ceremony to an inverted confession sequence in the Presbyterian liturgical tradition. The welcome from the host nations gives parameters on how guests should interact with the lands and the waters they’re on. The land acknowledgement is a declaration that past harm has happened on the land and that one’s ancestors participated in that harm, and that one hopes to make a change in one’s behavior.

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Miller highlighted this last component — the change in behavior — as a key element to the practice. “It’s more than just the words, but how are we going to live into that and take responsibility for the lands,” she said.

“When it becomes a checked box, it is performative. It goes from being a ceremony to being performative,” Sanders agreed. She compared the ceremony to Presbyterian sacraments that serve as reminders that accompany us on our journey.

Sanders emphasized that saying the names is important in and of itself. However, she added that the action step of engaging the land in the way host nations expect takes longer than a land acknowledgement — and it is what gives the ceremony meaning. She lifted up the significance of learning one’s own history as well as understanding how relationships with land have grounding in scripture. 

Ultimately, Sanders concluded, a land acknowledgement and the actions that follow are an attempt to live into and answer to a question that is always central for people of faith:

“How can we be Christian, in this current context?”

Along The Road is a weekly podcast consisting of alternating “Nourish” and “Encounter” episodes. The former are shorter episodes intended primarily for Presbyterian ruling elders and deacons, while the latter are longer conversations aimed primarily at church and mid council leaders. Other guests featured in recent episodes include the Rev. Kerri Allen, the Rev. Carmen Rosario, the Rev. Bill Buchanan, and the Rev. Dr. Neal Presa. New episodes of Along the Road are released every Wednesday and available on all major podcast platforms.