United Colours of the UAAC: More on the Politics of Diversity in Canada

In recent years, presentations at the Universities Art Association of Canada annual conference have been routinely prefaced with a land acknowledgement. [1] While many Indigenous land treaties between First Nations and the Crown are recognised by Canadian law, land claim disputes continue to be negotiated in ways that threaten Indigenous cultural sovereignty. As a settler nation with a history of racist colonial practices, Canada has been slow to recognise the rights of Indigenous, Mtis and Inuit peoples, only reluctantly signing the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples since doing so could interfere with the business interests that encroach on Indigenous territory, especially in British Columbia, where claims to unceded territory are highly contested. [2] Recent Indigenous-led protests against pipeline projects in the United States and Canada have brought additional awareness to a series of related concerns, from the legacy of assimilationist residential schools to egregious quality of life and social services disparities, mortality and incarceration rates, homicidal assaults against Indigenous women in particular and the military policing of protests. [3] Land acknowledgements are thus a legitimate expression of solidarity with Indigenous peoples in particular and with progressive politics more generally.