Self-location is an important cognitive function. It shows us how perception and action are interrelated, how one’s self-perception and one’s capacity to act–and the range of replies they find available to themselves–are connected.

Self-location, when discussing indigeneity and imperialism, encourages listeners and participants to reposition themselves in the conversation. Self-location is a pushback at colonialism. It requires that people consider, often for the first time, how they arrived here, why they are here, who they share this space with, and what that might mean for others.

Some questions to consider:

• Who are you? What is your name? Your name tells a story–what is that story?
• Who are your ancestors? Your family, biological or fictive? What are your ties, and which way to they extend? (Out, down, up, all three?) Who roots you?
• What brought your ancestors to North America? To the U.S.? To Tennessee?
• Do you know the history of the land you live/work on? Does that history encompass indigenous narratives, or just settler narratives?
• Have your family or ancestors been impacted by colonization, oppression, structural violence, or war?
• Have you benefitted from settler systems in North America?

The purpose of this exercise is not to make anyone feel excluded, or unwelcome. The purpose is to help people position themselves appropriately for the discussion.

Establishing where we exist in relation to the thing we’re going to do is critical, as decolonizing is about doing.

We begin today by recognizing and acknowledging that we are on the historic Homeland of the Chickasaw Nation of which they inhabited. Memphis, and all of Tennessee, was the long established territory for many indigenous peoples prior to their forced removal and unforeseen extinction. We have a responsibility to acknowledge the peoples and histories of these lands. Our ability to live here is the result of direct coercion, forced dispossession, and deliberate colonization. To ignore that is to perpetuate injustice to populations of people that no longer exist in this state, yet, have established major societies elsewhere in this country. The City of Memphis respects the diverse communities it touches, including those who occupied this territory originally, those brought to it by force, and those who settled here in search of better circumstances. We understand that territorial acknowledgement is only a gesture, but it represents the beginning of our commitment to justice and reconciliation in the United States.

Thank you to the Chickasaw Nation (and to their legal counsel and Department of Culture and Humanities specifically) for the comments and revisions.

Decolonizing is not a new way to say “diversity.”

Decolonizing is not mean “inclusion of previously excluded narratives/sources/ideas/epistemologies.”

It’s not a new buzz word for “human rights” or “social justice” or for being “politically correct.”

These things are part of what a decolonized space looks like. But they aren’t the same. Decolonization is about undoing colonial mentalities and replacing them.

It doesn’t challenge existing systems. It changes them.

This is why making your syllabus more “diverse” isn’t the same thing as decolonizing your syllabus. And why having a “representative” project isn’t the same thing as a decolonizing project.

To do that, we first have to identify what those mentalities, those structures, are.  That has to happen on a personal level before it can happen at the institutional one, or changes remain gestures, tokens.

I’ve been thinking about indigenous epistemologies lately and how this might be the link between the decolonizing process and the digital humanities project. The book Pulling Together: A Guide for Curriculum Developers (specifically “a guide for Indigenization”) has an excellent chapter on Indigenous Epistemologies and Pedagogies.   Someone studying Social/Emotional Learning theory might find some of these ideas and and methods familiar.

Holism. Relationality. Intergenerational and experiential learning. Place-based learning. I think this is where indigeneity meets digital humanities, and how this space can be a way to bring those things together to create a new understanding of what it means to be Memphis, what it means to live and exist in a colonized Memphis, and perhaps get a glimpse at what a decolonized Memphis might look like, or at minimum a map for the process.

This has not been approved by the Chickasaw Nation at this time. We are still in the process of reaching out and working with them.**

We begin today by recognizing and acknowledging that we are on the lands of the Chickasaw nation. Memphis, and all of Tennessee, was the traditional territory for many indigenous peoples prior to their forced removal, and the University of Memphis has a responsibility to acknowledge the peoples and histories of these lands. Our ability to exist here (to “dream, think, and do” here) is the result of coercion, dispossession, and colonization. To ignore that is to perpetuate it. The University of Memphis respects the diverse communities it touches, including those who occupied this territory originally, those brought to it by force, and those who settled here in search of better circumstances. We understand that acknowledgement is only a gesture, but it represents the beginning of our commitment to reconciliation in the United States.

Please leave any suggestions, edits, concerns, thoughts, etc, in the comments. This will continue to be updated, but I’ll leave a record of modifications in the comments as well.

**I know I stated that I wouldn’t share the draft until we had it approved, but I also thought seeing the process and the before and after would be important, so I decided to share it.

A lot has been written about the use of territorial acknowledgments. Even when questioning their effectiveness most people still agree that land acknowledgment is a good starting place for honoring the process of truth and reconciliation. The problem is when territorial acknowledgments are both the starting and finishing line for what should be an ongoing process of decolonization and reconciliation.

There are several places to find more information regarding how to create a territorial acknowledgement for your organization. The US Department of Arts and Culture , a grassroots activist movement, recommends a four step plan that might be the most accessible.

If you’d like to read more about our process in Memphis, you can start here: Land Acknowledgement Part 1

Further Reading and More Information:

ACPA Land Acknowledgement 2019

Centering the Land: The Importance of Acknowledging Indigenous Land and Lifeways

Guide to Acknowledging First Peoples & Traditional Territory

Honor Native Land: A Guide and Call to Acknowledgement

LSPRIG: Know The Land Territories Campaign

Indigenous Land Acknowledgement, Explained

Land Acknowledgements are a good first step, there theres a lot more work to be done

Understanding Territorial Acknowledgement as a Respectful Relationship

How to do a Territorial Acknowledgement

A List of US College and Universities with Land Acknowledgments:

Northwestern

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

UCLA American Indian Studies Center

University of San Diego

Undoubtedly there are others, this will be updated as we find them. Other faculty use statements on their syllabi that are not adopted by their universities, and are therefore not represented on the list.

Editors note: I relocated this information from a previous page after I realized I needed to have a page with links and general information about what a land acknowledgement is and why we use them.

Originally posted 5-Feb 2019, reposted as it’s own page on 23-July 2019

A lot has been written about the use of territorial acknowledgments. Even when questioning their effectiveness most people still agree that land acknowledgment is a good starting place for honoring the process of truth and reconciliation. The problem is when territorial acknowledgments are both the starting and finishing line for what should be an ongoing process of decolonization and reconciliation.

One of the first steps for this project was to get situated in the history of the land. From there, we wanted to create something that could be shared with others, something that oriented every meeting of minds to our goals. To that end, territorial acknowledgement followed by a self-location exercise (the subject for the next entry) are our most useful and immediately implementable tools.

There are several places to find more information regarding how to create a territorial acknowledgement for your organization. The US Department of Arts and Culture , a grassroots activist movement, recommends a four step plan that might be the most accessible, and what follows here is amended from their recommendations. I encourage anyone interested to download the entire guide, as this is not meant to substitute for it in any way. But since this is a blog about processes, I’ve decided to list the process by which we’re working on this acknowledgment.

Step 1: Identify the traditional inhabitants of the lands you are on now. 

We recognize that we are on Chickasaw territory. This map is a useful tool for identifying Native land in North America.

This land was acquired by the United States through a treaty known as the Jackson Treaty, the Jackson Purchase, and/or the Chickasaw Treaty. I am using the word “acquired” deliberately. There is much to study about the transaction between Andrew Jackson and Isaac Shelby (with John Overton and James Winchester as well) on behalf of the US and  Levi and George Colbert, Chinubby, and Tishomingo on behalf of the Chickasaw. One consistency across both stories is that Jackson told the Chickasaw that their options were 1.) sign a treaty now or 2.) be forced off the land by the US without compensation. By any measure of the imagination, that is coercion. However, this is an aspect of Memphis history still under research for the purposes of this project, so the word “acquired” remains for the moment.

Whether or not to incorporate the treaty into the acknowledgment is another question. On the one hand, the circumstances surrounding it suggest that it was not an actual agreement between two sovereign nations, but rather one nation acquiescing to another in hopes that it would preserve them. Perhaps it doesn’t deserve the additional legitimacy that inclusion would provide, nor should Andrew Jackson, architect o the Indian Removal Act, be in such a prominent place in what might be the public’s first (and perhaps only) engagement with Native history.  On the other, does not discussing the treaty hurt the spirit of the acknowledgement, and are we squandering an opportunity for educating others?

Step 2: Articulate the acknowledgement in a formal statement that can be used by others

We have a draft that I am happy to share upon request, but until we hear from the Chickasaw Nation regarding the acknowledgment, we won’t be publishing it.

In addition to my question about the treaty, I also wonder about incorporating other populations touched by colonialism?  Should all the peoples (native, settler, voluntary, involuntary) be acknowledged, even generally? This region was violently depopulated (ethnic cleansing) to make way for cotton plantations, and many people were brought into the area by force to work on the land. People continue to travel through Memphis for a variety of reasons. Decolonization is a process that affects all of us, and the University of Memphis is an institution with broad reach.

Step 3: Deliver this to the appropriate parties

To whom? To the president? The board? Staff and Faculty Senate? I’d like to get this completed and implemented sooner than later, but it could also be a part of Memphis’s bicentennial, and part of our push to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day, and decolonizing Thanksgiving–as starting points.

Step 4: Beyond Acknowledgment–because this isn’t where things end?

How do we proceed, after agreeing to these terms? How does our moment of self-location translate into what kinds of actions we believe we can now engage in?

Shana Dion, assistant dean of First Nations, Métis and Inuit students, also emphasizes that these steps must be taken meaningfully, and in conversation with others. She also emphasizes the importance of practice. Practice with unfamiliar terms. With unfamiliar phrasing. But also, studies show us that changing how we do things, and practicing those new methods, can become habits. Through repetition and practice we can retrain our brains to accommodate new modes of thinking and situating.

This morning I was reconsidering the following statement I wrote in the previous post:

This project recognizes that increased visibility and representation of both indigenous and immigrant populations in the Mid-South is a critical first step in undoing the dehumanizing of colonization that allows for the continued discriminating and marginalizing of both groups.

Does a project that exists as a result of colonialism, that seeks to undo the harm of colonialism, get to call itself a “decolonized” space?

Frantz Fanon wrote that “decolonization, as we know, is a historical process; that is to say it cannot be understood, it cannot become intelligible nor clear to itself except in the exact measure that we can discern the movements which give it historical form and content.” Colonization isn’t a moment, or a series of events. It’s an insidious ongoing process of slips and gains, giving and taking, complicity and coercion. It is a process, one so embedded in thinking and ways of knowing, that it is only by studying it that we can avoid replicating it.

All this to say that I’ve decided to be OK with the above statement. Perhaps one day we will get to a place where it doesn’t need to be said, but for now I think intentionally creating a space that hopes to undo the racism, discrimination, and marginalization of indigenous and immigrant people meets the decolonizing mission.

Decolonizing Memphis is a digital humanities project aimed at creating a decolonized narrative about a city located in Chickasaw territory and currently known as Memphis, TN. A “decolonized narrative” is not one that simply adds diversity to an already existing  story.  It is one that centers indigenous and immigrant histories rather than settler-colonist accounts. . It is produced using multiple forms of knowledge, and in the process aims to legitimize those forms of knowledge production, creation, and dissemination long excluded from the Western canon. Though this project might lapse into an organizational structure or hierarchy familiar to Western thought, it does not rest on the privileging of those categories or schemas.

This project recognizes that increased visibility and representation of both indigenous and immigrant populations in the Mid-South is a critical first step in undoing the dehumanizing of colonization that allows for the continued discriminating and marginalizing of both groups.  This intersection is critical to our long-term project goals, one of which is to understand the creation and history of the United States through the lens of indigeneity and immigration. The decision to limit the initial parameters of this project to Memphis (and eventually expanding to the Mid-South) was made in part due to the argument that examining the “multiplicity of the local” is the most effective way to build and hone our de-colonizing practice. To keep the focus local much of the content of this project will be determined by the interests and needs of those it serves, and not the wants of the larger academic community.

The target audience for this project is other indigenous and immigrant people. We hope to create a space that brings together indigenous and immigrant voices in Memphis, a space that exists for these groups to speak to one another without having to do the intellectual work of translating for settler audiences. Translating, in this sense, involves rationalizing why indigenous forms of knowledge and communication matter. We will not do that. This project takes for granted the humanity of indigenous and immigrant peoples and the legitimacy of their understandings. We intend to make the information accessible for those outside these communities, but for this space to truly be decolonized it is the indigenous and immigrant authors who will be the gatekeepers, definers, and reviewers of content.

Universities (and the internet) have not always been the kinds of spaces where decolonizing work is able to happen. The humanities often privilege certain forms of knowledge production and transmission over others, creating environments that might be diversified in content, but colonized in practice. Additionally, technology often presents more barriers than pathways to decolonization. Though often described and used as a democratizing force in the 21st century, who has access to the hardware needed to participate in these projects, how these projects are made accessible, and where they take place in the U.S. often discourages or completely disqualifies people from joining. We believe we can do decolonizing work even colonized spaces, but that often requires rethinking and retrofitting said spaces for our needs.

Decolonizing Memphis: The Intersection of Indigeneity and Immigration is a project in process. I mean this two ways. Colonization was, and is, process. Likewise, decolonization will be a process as well. This blog will be a space to watch the process of the process of decolonizing work.

Sources:

There are many things written about the process of decolonization, about the digital humanities, and about representation and audience. I’m linking the few I’ve used here, and will create a separate section eventually for additional resources.

Risam, Roopika. “Decolonizing the Digital Humanities in Theory and Practice.”

Earhart, Amy E. and Maura Ives. “Race, Print, and Digital Humanities.”

Earhart, Amy. “Can information Be Unfettered? Race and the New Digital Humanities Canon.”

Smith, Mychal Denzel. “The Gatekeepers: On The Burden of the Black Public Intellectual.”

Delgado, Louis T. “Native Voices Rising: A Case for Funding Native-led Changes.”