Performance or Progress? The Physical and Rhetorical Removal of Indigenous Peoples in Settler Land Acknowledgments at Land-Grab Universities

Abstract

Land acknowledgments are an evolving practice to recognize local Indigenous Peoples as traditional stewards of their homelands. Using a content and discourse analysis, we conduct the first empirical study of U.S. land acknowledgment statements focusing on the 47 land-grab universities created under the 1862 Morrill Act. We find that LGUs tend to adopt statements in urban areas, where federally recognized tribes are present, and at institutions with over 100 enrolled Native American students. Land acknowledgment statements also commonly name local Indigenous Peoples yet often fail to articulate their responsibilities to them, include superficial gestures, and center multicultural language. We offer “rhetorical removal” to describe the tendency of land-grab universities to deploy language that selectively erases Indigenous Peoples and, thus, argue that statements must directly address settler colonial legacies of violence and redistribute material support for Indigenous students and partnerships with Native nations.