LandBack Final Podcast

Land-backed movements in Indigenous communities benefit agricultural practices and empower Indigenous people. The Canadian government's Bill C-25 made reserved lands more vulnerable to government leasing, leading to the hashtag #IDontKnowMore movement. Indigenous perceptions of land ownership focus on both ownership and how the land is used, based on Indigenous governance practices. The Yellowhead Institute created a Red Paper on land back and Indigenous consent. Indigenous leadership is collectivist and consensus-based, while Western leadership is hierarchical. Examples of successful Indigenous resistance movements include the Taino resistance in the 15th century, the American Indian Movement in the 1960s, and the Standing Rock resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Successful contemporary activist movements include the Nipki Azupakon Camp, Santiago Ixchimta's community-based forest management, and the Segore Pei Land Trust's efforts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Community su Hi, in today's podcast, we're going to try and answer the question of, how do land-backed movements benefit agricultural practice, while also providing a structure for indigenous empowerment? And how do or did personal histories contribute to these larger themes? In 2012, the Canadian federal government introduced Bill C-25, a legislation that altered the previous Indian Act. Before this bill, reserved lands in Canada were not able to be given to non-indigenous people. On the off chance that they were, the Canadian federal government would lease the land out long-term through a process of double-majority voting. After the bill, this process would be reduced to one-majority voting, making reserved land more vulnerable to government leasing. Canada was criticized for not consulting with the First Nations or their representatives about alternatives to or impacts of the bill. The First Nations lauded a judicial view in response. This would eventually fail, and the bill would pass. Despite the disappointing conclusion, this bill's passage would have larger implications for Indian activism. Soon after the bill's proposal, Jessica Gordon, an indigenous woman, posted a tweet stating that she was, quote, done with hashtag Bill C-45. Everyone wasting time talking about Gwen Stefani WTH. Hashtag Indian Act. Hashtag Where's the Democracy. Hashtag I don't know more. This was the first recordings of the hashtag I don't know more, which would go on to persist past the barriers of C-45 and would empower indigenous people everywhere for the next 12 years. This leaves the question, what is the Western perception of how land facts should look? What does it actually look like in contemporary practice? Western perception focuses mostly on legal ownership of the land. Indigenous perception focuses on both ownership and how that land is used, how to give back to the indigenous communities on the lands that were taken from them by using practices of indigenous governance based on indigenous practices. The Yellowhead Institute, an indigenous-led research and education center based in Toronto, created a document called a Yellowhead Institute Red Paper, which not only is reclaiming the very act of sharing knowledge with indigenous practices, hence the name Red Paper, but also dissects land back and indigenous consent. Western perceptions of land ownership and exclusionary practices have seeped into indigenous spaces due to colonization, but there are efforts to undo that and reclaim both the physical land and the uses of that land. Similar to what Maya said, the article that I read, Land Back, a Meta-Narrative to Help Indigenous People Show Up as Movement Leaders by Nikki A. Pierro, Sarah S. Manning, and Nick Tilson talked a lot about the differences between Western leadership and the indigenous leadership. For example, indigenous leadership is more collectivist and consensus-based, focusing on group objectives, while Western leadership is often hierarchical and top-down. On a similar note, indigenous leadership is decentralized and adaptive, with leadership roles transitioning according to movement needs, unlike the fixed roles in Western models, which is an important thing to think about, especially when you think about my article in relation to other movements and how they have to adapt with the times and what's happening in culture, rather than Western is more so just stagnant. So now maybe we can bring up some specific examples of indigenous resistance movements that have kind of led us to where we are today in terms of indigenous resistance. Yeah, so throughout my article, they kind of touched on a lot of different movements. One was in the 15th century with the Taino resistance, and there was the alliances of Taino chiefs against Spanish Conquistadors, and they rose up against Christopher Columbus and the Spanish Conquistadors, and they were able to make strides in that way. That was one of the first early movements. And then you go on to the 1960s with the American Indian Movement, which was founded to fight against police brutality and the policy change that was influencing the land-backed campaigns. They also had very incredible gains in international policy for indigenous people, even beyond Turtle Island, which my article specifically focused on a lot. They also developed tracks against localized issues and larger national transnational strategies, which is an important part of working, and one of their goals is to be more transnational and get more help from other people who are facing the similar issues. With that, they also did move into more about Standing Rock, which was the resistant camps against the Dakota Access Pipelines in 2016, which led by matriarchs and became a historic stand for indigenous justice and rights. Following that, they did go on to what my article focused on, which is the Land-Back Campaign, which is a movement addressing the theft of indigenous land and advocating for decolonization and the dismantling of white supremacy. All of these movements, in order, kind of tie in together a lot about what's happening currently with land-backed movements. So now that we do have a little bit more context, historical context, we can think about what makes an activist movement successful in the contemporary world. Our first example of this is the Nipki Azupakon Camp, which was established in 2017 by Anishinaabe elders and community members from the area. Their goal was to revive traditional ways of taking care of the land, to teach Ojibwe to Native youth, and connect youth and elders. They also worked to make sure the facilities are eco-friendly and have a strong focus on environmental sustainability as they further develop the space. To look at another example, we could look in the book, Fresh Banana Leaves, Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science, by author Jessica Hernandez. She points to a community of Santiago Ixchimta, who are part of the Zapotec Nation. In order to protect forests from deforestation, illegal lodging, and as well as to protect their way of life, they practice community-based forest management, also known as CBFM. It is largely based on the idea that taking care of land can provide all that is needed to survive, as well as maintaining Indigenous knowledge within Indigenous communities. The colonial occupation of the San Francisco Bay Area in California is part of the traditional homeland of the Indigenous Ohlone people, who have been systemically denied their rights to this region through decades of violence and disenfranchisement in the name of urban development. The Segore Pei Land Trust, an inter-tribal and multicultural woman-led organization founded in 2012, has been making significant progress in the efforts of land acquisition, cultural revitalization, and food sovereignty. The Trust has successfully reclaimed various plots of land across the Bay Area, returning them to Indigenous stewardship. These sites provide the fiscal means for the Ohlone to practice sustainable agriculture and reclaim their cultural heritage. Through educational workshops, community gardening, and youth programs, the Ohlone have been resisting colonial oppression by practicing ancestral traditions of planting, harvesting, and seed saving of Native species, as well as prescribed burning, basket weaving, and traditional medicine. The Segore Pei Land Trust has amassed a network of support, including other Indigenous tribes from across California and internationally, as well as many non-Indigenous people and several like-minded nonprofit organizations, such as Planting Justice, which is based around the empowerment of food sovereignty, economic justice, and community healing. These collaborations have enabled the Land Trust to build engagement and access the resources necessary to carry out its mission. Amazingly, the Trust has been successful in encouraging non-Indigenous locals to pay reparations for benefiting from colonialism through donating land and money to the Ohlone people. Part of this initiative is the Shumi Land Tax, a voluntary and annual contribution paid by non-Indigenous people living on historically Ohlone land, which funds the Trust in its efforts to rematriate Indigenous land. The internet and social media have also been instrumental in raising awareness and mobilizing support for the Segore Pei Land Trust. On its website and social media platforms, people are able to access educational content and personal narratives, participate in activism efforts, engage in dialogue, and stay up-to-date about community programming like workshops and fundraisers. Social media is also utilized to promote crowdfunding through websites like GoFundMe, which has been an important resource for all kinds of grassroots fundraising in the digital age. The Instagram account at Segore Pei Land Trust not only promotes content specific to its own campaign, but also uplifts other similar activist movements, including Indigenous People for a Free Palestine. Making these connections is so important for building allyship and finding strength in the shared goals of various social justice initiatives. Online activism has opened up pathways for effective collaboration and communication, enabling Indigenous organizations like the Segore Pei Land Trust to create real change in the modern world. What common themes and ideas can we pull from the examples that give us insight on land-backed movements outside of the colonial view? For one, we can learn that community is a large indicator of success. Even if the movement does not win in the battle against a piece of legislation or a bill, the communities built in solidarity remain. Eventually, as the group builds together, so too will their numbers and their successes. With the internet, these groups are able to directly publish their own words without jumping through academic or legal hoops. You can just post a tweet and it will gain some form of response. Publicity is publicity that are good. Despite the what would be called failure of the hashtag Idle No More movement, in fighting Canada's C45 bill, new communities and activist groups were formed. The hashtag formed a new kind of activism that reached a global scale. Finally, Native voices are being projected worldwide. The internet is a place of free will, and although they may try, the institutional bodies that fight to suppress Indigenous voices cannot dismantle all activist forums on the internet. Building off your point of community, thinking about the examples of contemporary land-backed actions we discussed earlier, it's important to highlight the intergenerational aspect of it all. CBFM requires elders, adults, and youth to be learning and working with each other. This intergenerational aspect allows for Indigenous knowledge, however that may look for each tribe, to stay within the community. This provides sovereignty in the sense that first, Indigenous people are the ones managing their natural resources. And secondly, when Indigenous knowledge remains within that community, capitalism cannot reach in and co-opt it. It is important to note about the continual exploitation and co-opting of Indigenous life for profit and how it has been detrimental to communities. Author Jessica Hernandez emphasizes that Indigenous knowledge has often been shamed for not scaling up to Western science. While it does, and oftentimes is as intricate and useful as Western science, or even more so, this shame has led to knowledge being lost in communities. Further, when it is taken and then used by environmental scientists, it can lead to that knowledge being gatekept from the same communities that it came from. This is a terrible cycle, but for as long as it has been happening, there has been Indigenous voices pushing back against this sinister process. Moreover, conventional Indigenous activism is centered around what the white man is willing to do for the Indian, and not about what the Indian actually wants or needs. They were more likely to be narratives about Indians than ones actually written by them. Modern social movements fight these perspectives by allowing Indigenous individuals to control their own narratives. They are free to say whatever they want and to propose their own ideas to larger activist bodies and communities. Moreover, the idea that Indigenous people's personal narratives are important to collective action is fairly new. In past activism, the personal narrative was maybe considered too raw for the government's conception. With the Internet, new communities are built to be reached with these raw emotional stories. Indians who are undergoing horrible legislation and federal governance can now gain sympathy from those who were able to remain unknowing before. With this outreach, no longer can the average person stay uneducated about Native American policy. The downside to all this access is that each individual will likely form their own opinions and ideas about Native American movements, potentially leading to confusion about where the activism is headed and what goals are best to complete. But the idea of sovereignty includes actually having the opportunity to navigate these issues of communication and the opportunity to complete collective action as a whole together. The article talks a lot about solidarity amongst groups. One thing they highlighted that while in entirely different hemispheres, both African and Indigenous people of the Americas were viewed as heathen and less than human. They were also called words like disposable. And so when you think about it, there are the Indigenous people have an obstacle to seller colonialism. And the African people have been being used as a tool of workforce to exploit colonizers to reach their goals of colonization on Indigenous lands. And so in the America, both Black and Indigenous people continue to suffer systemic oppression in all its forms, resulting in both poor health, education, economic outcomes, and often experiencing the highest rates of police violence, police brutality, and incarceration, like mentioned previously. And so the article very much highlighted a lot of things such as shared struggles. It highlighted how there's a similar struggle between Indigenous and Black communities rooted in the colonization and systemic oppressions that have happened in history. They also talk about the need for collective liberation. It stresses that collective liberation is only possible through solidarity and if these movements come together to influence systemic changes. They mentioned that organizational alliances like the NDN's collective relationship with the movement for Black Lives Matter. It's going to be very ample in sharing the platforms and addressing specific issues affecting Indigenous peoples. So a big question that one can ask in this article is how can Indigenous and Black communities continue to build solidarity? In my opinion, building solidarity between Indigenous and Black communities involves understanding shared struggles, fostering mutual respect, and collaborating on common goals. There is a lot of ways that they can do this. For one, understanding each other's history, culture, and experiences can foster empathy and mutual respect. This can be achieved through shared learning experiences such as workshops, cultural exchanges, and even joint community events. In addition, there needs to be more collaborative activism. If we work together on issues that affect both communities, that can strengthen our bonds and that can, one, impact our joint advocacy campaigns, protests, and our community projects. I don't think a lot of people talk about this when you're thinking about solidarity, but more open dialogue. There just needs to be more regular communication between these groups like the NDN collective as well as the Black Lives movement because this could be facilitated through community meetings, online forums, or even just social media platforms to show that there is solidarity because if it is outwardly shown, people kind of know, like, you know, I'm not going to mess with these people. They have a backing. And because the Black Lives Matter movement was so big, especially after the loss of Trayvon Martin, like, people are coming together more. Next, there needs to be more support of each other's causes. We can all, like, have our own separate issues, but at the end of the day, we're all facing similar issues with the Western way that has continued to push our people down. So if we show up and support each other's causes, that can just demonstrate that we have a mutual respect, and also we can be using our voices and our resources to share and promote each other's campaigns and stand together in these protests. And then lastly, I think just addressing intersectionality. We need to recognize and address that there is an intersectionality of impressions faced by individuals who are both black and indigenous, which can help ensure that all voices are heard and represented. A lot of people don't view black people as being indigenous, or like, there are different people and different ways to be indigenous. And so if we recognize the intersectionality of that, then we have more chance and a better chance of understanding each other's struggles, but also the struggles of collective people who are also being doubly marginalized and oppressed for these kinds of activities. For more UN videos visit www.un.org