Land and Water Acknowledgment
As Gould (1992) acknowledges, “there is not a university in this country that is not built on what was once native land.” That is true for both Duke University, located in Durham County, and the Duke University Marine Laboratory, located in Carteret County. As someone who has studied and worked at both Duke campuses and lived on surrounding land, I would like to acknowledge, honor, and respect the diverse history of Indigenous peoples in our settler state and throughout our settler nation. I acknowledge that the impacts of settler land theft extend beyond the immediate land on which we reside and work; rather dispossession is embedded in a larger systemic process of transferring wealth and sovereignty from indigenous to non-indigenous peoples.
Many indigenous peoples have called the settler state of North Carolina home despite the fact that only eight tribal nations are formally recognized today: the Coharie Tribe, the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation, the Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, the Meherrin Indian Tribe, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, the Sappony, and the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe. The Tuscarora tribe is only one example of unrecognized peoples in this settler state.
The nomadic nature of past peoples in harmony with the seasons makes it difficult to define homeland, boundaries, and territories. Nevertheless, Coree and Neusiok tribes inhabited the land that we today call Carteret County, where I live and which is home to the Duke Marine Lab, prior to colonization and tribes unknown to settlers inhabited this land for thousands of years prior. Additionally, the Lucayan branch of the Taínos people once inhabited the land in The Bahamas where I now conduct research, stewarding the lands and waters for approximately eight centuries. While many of these cultures, communities, and lives were lost to the earth and remain unknown to settlers as a result of colonial violence, I recognize and respect named and unnamed Native people’s perpetual connection to this land and water.
I also acknowledge that Duke Marine Lab is sited on the Atlantic Ocean, and my research in The Bahamas takes place in the Caribbean Sea, where settlers occupy and use the waters that slave ships traversed as they delivered enslaved Africans to both North Carolina and The Bahamas. I acknowledge that Atlantic waters are spaces of violent history and the final resting place of millions of enslaved Africans who were cast overboard during passage. I further recognize that “because nutrients cycle through the ocean…, the atoms of those people who were thrown overboard and are out there in the ocean even today,” (Sharpe 2016, p. 49), incorporated into the very waters and organisms that are central to research at the Duke Marine Lab and my work in The Bahamas.
I therefore recognize the overlapping histories of these lands and waters, including violent removal of Native peoples propagated by colonizers and the brutal legacy of slavery and oppression, the legacies of which remain entrenched in American society today. I recognize that many truths of these lands and waters will remain unknown to settlers. Decolonization is a daunting and ongoing process, and we must all be mindful of our present participation in the legacies of colonization as we live, work, and play on stolen land, and in waters imbued with violent histories of white supremacy.
Labor Acknowledgment
I acknowledge that much of what we know of this country today, including its culture, economic growth, and development throughout history and across time, has been made possible by the labor of enslaved Africans and their ascendants who suffered the horror of the transatlantic trafficking of their people, chattel slavery, and Jim Crow. We are indebted to their labor and their sacrifice, and we must acknowledge the tremors of that violence throughout the generations and the resulting impact that can still be felt and witnessed today. I recognize the enslaved, underpaid, and exploited peoples who provided labor to build and maintain many higher education institutions, including Duke University, which has a prolonged history of racialized exploitation and segregation. I remain indebted to the labor of these peoples and to the labor of many who continue to work in the shadows for my collective benefit.
Reflections on Land and Labor Acknowledgments
I recognize that land and labor acknowledgments are not without controversy, and that they can cause material harm when they are performative or misleading (see, e.g., Lambert et al., 2021). Although these acknowledgements are incomplete and insufficient, I have prepared them as a part of my own ongoing self-reflective work in identifying my biases and complicity in injustice. I share them to advance a meaningful conversation about ongoing harms that we further and from which we continue to benefit. I welcome feedback and ongoing dialogue regarding issues I have raised in these acknowledgments, and corrections for any oversights or errors. I commit to continually evaluate how I might work toward reparative justice, including learning from, highlighting, and supporting the experiences and efforts of those who have worked, and continue to work, toward meaningful change, especially Black and Indigenous scholars, activists, and leaders.
References
Source Acknowledgments
Land and Water Acknowledgment and learning resources modified from the Sample Beaufort-based land acknowledgement at https://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/diversity/expand-your-knowledge/teaching/land-acknowledgements-an-exploration/, which was written in a PhD pedagogy class and adopted from that of Nicki Cagle to incorporate local history of Carteret County provided by David Cecelski.
Labor Acknowledgment modified from Stewart, T. (2021, February 24). On Labor Acknowledgements and Honoring the Sacrifice of Black Americans. Diverse: Issues In Higher Education. https://www.diverseeducation.com/demographics/african-american/article/15108677/on-labor-acknowledgements-and-honoring-the-sacrifice-of-black-americans
Additional Materials Cited and/or Consulted
Gilroy, P. (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness. Harvard University Press.
Gould, J. (1992). The problem of being “Indian”: One mixed-blood’s dilemma. In S. Smith and J. Watson (Eds.), De/colonizing the subject: The politics of gender in women’s autobiography (pp. 81-90). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Lambert, M. C. L., Elisa Sobo, Valerie L. (2021, December 20). Rethinking Land Acknowledgments. Anthropology News. https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/rethinking-land-acknowledgments/
McKittrick, K., & Woods, C. (2007). No one knows the mysteries at the bottom of the ocean. In K. McKittrick & C. Woods (Eds.), Black geographies and the politics of place (pp. 1–13). Between the Lines.
Sharpe, C. (2016). In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Duke University Press.
Emily Melvin 