Understanding the Purpose, Limits, and Misuse of "Land Acknowledgements"

On symbolism, substance, and the limits of public ritual

British Columbia’s Lower Mainland is home to 11 First Nations, a place where land acknowledgments have become ubiquitous.

Land acknowledgements became a standard feature of public life in Canada in the mid-2010s, particularly after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report in 2015. That report documented the harms of the residential school system and called on governments and institutions to confront the legacy of colonialism. In its wake came a surge of symbolic gestures—among them, the now-familiar practice of opening public events by recognizing the Indigenous nations on whose territories they take place. By the end of the decade, acknowledgements were commonplace at major sports games, university convocations, arts events, and parliamentary proceedings.

The intent behind these statements is usually sincere: to signal respect, to increase awareness, and to remind Canadians that Indigenous nations are not relics of the past but living political communities. But good intentions do not immunize a practice from scrutiny. And land acknowledgements, by now, deserve scrutiny.

Critics—many of them Indigenous—have argued that acknowledgements can become hollow rituals: a way for institutions to claim moral credit without altering their behaviour, redistributing power, or addressing the material conditions facing Indigenous communities. Others reply that symbolism still matters, especially when it corrects long-standing public ignorance. Both are right, to a point. The question is not whether acknowledgements are good or bad in the abstract, but when they are meaningful—and when they become empty theatre.

They tend to make sense in at least three kinds of situations.

First, in formal public or governmental settings. When an institution exercises power, shapes public narratives, or represents a collective decision, like city councils, legislatures, or major civic ceremonies, it can be useful to acknowledge whose land it occupies. In such contexts, place is not incidental; it is politically relevant.

Second, when the subject matter directly concerns land, place, or specific communities. A conference on urban planning, environmental stewardship, or regional history is not merely happening somewhere; it is about somewhere. Ignoring the Indigenous presence in such cases would be odd.

Third, when acknowledgements are linked to tangible commitments: real partnerships, government or industry agreements, or co-governance arrangements. An acknowledgement has integrity when it is not the end of the conversation but the beginning of one.

Finally, when local Indigenous nations explicitly request or provide guidance on protocols, it is sensible to follow their lead.

But there are also circumstances in which acknowledgements become unhelpful—or worse.

If they function purely as symbolic gestures, untethered from any willingness to change behaviour, they risk trivializing the very issues they are meant to highlight. If a mining conference begins with a solemn statement about Indigenous land and then proceeds to ignore Indigenous consent, the acknowledgement reads less like respect and more like reputational laundering.

They are also misused when they substitute for Indigenous participation rather than facilitating it. Reciting a script is not the same thing as sharing authority. And when acknowledgements are shoehorned into contexts where there is no institutional power, no public voice, and no collective decision-making—informal social gatherings, for instance—they can feel less like recognition and more like ritualized awkwardness.

Accuracy matters as well. Getting the names wrong, using outdated language, or speaking vaguely of “Indigenous peoples” instead of the specific nation or nations whose land one is on defeats the entire purpose. When in doubt, it is better to pause than to improvise.

A helpful rule of thumb is this: a land acknowledgement is most defensible when the event exercises public voice or authority, connects to place or community, and is open to real Indigenous participation or follow-through. If all three are present, the practice is usually justified. If none are, it is usually not.

One common confusion is between land acknowledgements and territorial welcomes. They are not interchangeable. A land acknowledgement is something non-Indigenous presenters do. A territorial welcome is a cultural protocol performed by members of the local First Nation. It’s akin to inviting an ambassador to speak and contribute to the message of the event in a respectful way. Asking an Indigenous person to attend an event merely to “deliver a land acknowledgement” is conceptually incoherent.

Much of the strongest criticism of acknowledgements is that they are merely symbolic. As Cutcha Risling Baldy has put it, acknowledging ownership without returning control is like stealing someone’s laptop and then attaching a label with their name on it. The thief may be telling the truth, but they still have the laptop.

That criticism has force—but it also misunderstands what acknowledgements were ever meant to do. No one seriously believes that a sentence recited before a hockey game will resolve land claims or restructure Canadian federalism. Their function is more modest: to correct a historical erasure. For generations, Canadians were encouraged to think of the country as a blank slate, populated by “settlers” rather than displaced nations. Acknowledgements challenge that myth.

And on that front, they have succeeded. In cities like Vancouver, far more people now know the names of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations than they did thirty years ago. They understand these are not vanished peoples but contemporary political communities. That shift in baseline knowledge matters.

Still, the current practice has problems. Acknowledgements increasingly adopt an overwrought moral tone, with language about “stolen land” that flattens legal and political complexity. In much of British Columbia, for example, the reality is not simple theft but unresolved and competing sovereignties—Crown and Indigenous—meant to be reconciled through negotiation. Reducing that to slogans obscures more than it clarifies.

Equally problematic is the tendency to graft unrelated political messaging onto acknowledgements—about homelessness, climate change, foreign conflicts, or whatever else the speaker wishes to signal. This dilutes the focus and turns a practice meant to be specific into a vehicle for generic moral posturing.

The real disagreement, then, is not whether acknowledgements “fix everything.” They obviously do not. The question is what they are for. If they are meant to produce instant justice, they will always fail. If they are meant to produce public awareness and a more accurate understanding of place, they often succeed.

Where this leaves us is unclear. It may be that the practice has been stretched so far beyond its original purpose that it now undermines itself. When acknowledgements appear in email signatures, at office birthday parties, or before routine Zoom calls, the effect is no longer educational. It is numbing.

That raises a serious question: has this become a meaningful protocol poorly adapted, or a kind of moral performance that allows non-Indigenous institutions to feel righteous without doing anything difficult?

If land acknowledgements are to retain credibility, they will need to be used more sparingly, more precisely, and more honestly. Otherwise, they risk becoming yet another well-intentioned gesture that, through overuse and misuse, ends up meaning very little at all.