Is ‘visiting’ less settler colonial than ‘acknowledging’? Jo Billows, Territory Acknowledgment, Unacknowledgement, and Misacknowledgement: A Haunting, MA dissertation, University of Toronto, 2021 | settler colonial studies blog

Is ‘visiting’ less settler colonial than ‘acknowledging’? Jo Billows, Territory Acknowledgment, Unacknowledgement, and Misacknowledgement: A Haunting, MA dissertation, University of Toronto, 2021

08Dec21

Abstract: This thesis analyzes conversations on the practice of territory acknowledgements, particularly as they are practiced in academic spaces, arts spaces and by organizations and institutions. Themes that are drawn from these conversations and attended to include: territory acknowledgements as distinctly not “traditional protocol”, territory acknowledgements and the politics of recognition (what is their purpose?), the labour of territory acknowledgements (who is doing them, and who are they for?) and the exhausting repetition of territory acknowledgements (how often?). Territory acknowledgement (as well as unacknowledgement and misacknowledgement) is then removed from the framework of reconciliation and theorized instead as haunting. The author posits, if reconciliation is dead, is territory acknowledgement a haunting? Finally, visiting practices are introduced as alternative ways to make relationships to place not based on possession or ownership. This final chapter considers the positionality of being a visitor, an ethics of care for visiting, and offers examples of visiting practices.

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