Care and the Funny Business of Unsettling Land Acknowledgements

ABSTRACT

This article points to the “funny business” that invariably accompanies the practice of land acknowledgments. By highlighting the idea of “funny business,” we illuminate its double entrendre – its humor as well as the smoke and mirrors of what The Care Collective ([2020]. The care manifesto: The politics of interdependence. Verso.) describes as “carewashing,” communication strategies designed to proffer a sense of concern, while all the while continuing exploitative practices that deny and obstruct these very concerns. We meld humor with seriousness to interrogate land acknowledgments, expose the perplexing dilemmas of Indigenous and colonial contexts, and push past to work towards responsible relationality between Indigenous communities and settler institutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Land acknowledgments
• carewashing
• Indigenous media
• humor
• decoloniality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).