Land acknowledgement

Before beginning the workshop, we’d like to acknowledge that we are meeting throughout this week on unceded Indigenous lands. The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation is recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters on which we gather today. Tiohtià:ke/Montréal is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations. Today, it is home to a diverse population of Indigenous and other peoples.

Within the context of our workshop, it is particularly important to acknowledge the Indigenous lands and worldviews that exist on the place we are gathering, and the role that mapping and cartography have played in the colonial project that has undermined these perspectives. As Rose-Redwood et al. (2020) write:

“As a political technology, mapping has long played a key role in the world-making practices of colonialism through the appropriation, demarcation, naming, and partitioning of territory as part of the process of colonization and the assertion of imperial rule over peoples and places (Akerman 2009; Edney 1997; Huggan 1989; Pickles 2004). Consequently, the cartographies of empire have been instrumental in the dispossession of Indigenous peoples of the lands they have called home since time immemorial (Craib 2017; Harley 2001; Johnson, Louis, and Pramono 2006).”

Rose-Redwood, Reuben, et al. “Decolonizing the Map: Recentering Indigenous Mappings.” Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization, vol. 55 no. 3, 2020, p. 151-162. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/766913., p.152.

Although much of the work we do this week will look at “traditional” mapping spatial visualization processes, in our work we take a critical cartographic approach that seeks to acknowledge that maps are always constructed and never neutral.

As we work together this week, think about the ways in which spatial visualizations participate in or can potentially undo ideologies of power and colonialism, and what actions you might take in your own projects to address the colonial history of mapping and cartography.

For an example of a decolonial approach, take a look at the Turtle Island Decolonized project, which maps Indigenous place names across so-called North America (see here for the PDF). Additionally, the web map below is from Native Land Digital. Please take a moment to explore native-land.ca and learn about the Indigenous territories, languages, and treaties in your area. Further readings on mapping, colonization, and decolonization at the bottom of this page.

Read more on Maps, Colonialism, and Decolonization

• Decolonizing the Map: Recentering Indigenous Mappings in a Special Issue of Cartographica
• Decolonizing and Indigenizing the map
• Coming Home to Indigenous Place Names in Canada by Dr. Margaret Wickens Pearce
• Mapping as tacit representations of the colonial gaze
• Whose Land
• Decolonizing maps is a process that addresses the biases, inaccuracies, and colonial perspectives inherent in many cartographic representations.
• Place in Research: Theory, Methodology, and Methods