Presentation

This Open Educational Resource includes four public virtual talks given as part of the Settler Colonialism in Canada: Perspectives, Comparisons, Cases project, which also included a workshop, conference, and a graduate symposium, in addition to publications that gather over fifty researchers and knowledge keepers from a variety of backgrounds.

These virtual public talks took place in the summer of 2022. They were meant to act as an ongoing and living acknowledgement of historical, existing, and possible relationships to the land and on the land. Participants to the workshop, conference, and symposium were invited to view these talks ahead of gathering on the territory of the nêhiyawak, Anihšināpēk, Dakota, Lakota, and Nakoda, and the homeland of the Métis. The talks prepared them to reflect on their relationship to this land, and on good ways to interact and live on this land, even if briefly.

To deepen and further complexify our reflection on possible ways to engage with the land including the physical, aesthetic and political aspects of perception of the land, as well as acknowledge the impact that an image featured on a cover can have, we also sat down with David Garneau to talk about his painting “Conflicting Patterns (Salle River Allotments).” Through the discussion around this painting, we have the chance to question the influence of maps on our relationship to land.

Being Together: A Living Land Acknowledgement for oskana kâ-asastêki / Regina functions both as a multimedia repository for these four public virtual talks, interview, and two discussions between the editors, and as a book that holds a version of the words that were spoken and shared through video recordings. It now exists as a resource for anyone coming to, visiting, or living on this territory, or attending virtual events held thereupon.

Being Together—not only with each other, but also together with the land—is at once a resource for reflecting on how we relate to the land, and on how we speak about this relationality. Speaking about the land so often takes place through the ritualized, regularized, unthinking practice of land acknowledgements. The conclusion presents many elements of the editors’ reflection on this practice, beginning with their unease and opening onto an ever-changing manner to adapt to good ways to live with the land and others.

The wider Settler Colonialism in Canada: Perspectives, Comparisons, Cases project is led by Emily Grafton (U Regina), David MacDonald (Guelph), and Jérôme Melançon (U Regina). The virtual talks were arranged by Emily Grafton and Jérôme Melançon, and this Open Educational Resource was built by Jérôme Melançon.