GAP, WAPPP, and the Harvard Kennedy School are located on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary unceded homeland of the Massachusett people, the surviving descendants of the first people of Massachusetts and of the Neponset band of the Massachusett. We honor this tradition and work toward a gender equity agenda that addresses the needs of all women, including Indigenous women and Indigenous communities.
The purpose of land acknowledgements is to create broader public awareness of the true history of the land, begin to repair relationships with Native communities and with the land, inspire ongoing action and relations, support larger reconciliation efforts, remind people that colonization is ongoing and Native lands are currently occupied by Indigenous and non-indigenous people, and to take a cue from Indigenous protocol by opening space with reverence and respect.
Resources for Land Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the organizations and people whose work guided the crafting of our land acknowledgement, including the work of the Harvard University Native American Program and the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, as well as a land acknowledgement written by the Wellesley College Native American Student Association. Thank you to Harrison Nekoroski from the Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Harvard Kennedy School for crafting the statement on the purpose and importance of land acknowledgments.
To hear more, we suggest this land acknowledgment given by Elizabeth Solomon, Assistant Director of Academic Affairs at Harvard Chan School's Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and a member of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag at the Chan School’s convocation in 2018. For those looking to learn more, we also recommend Native Land for both its map of Indigenous nations and its extensive resources page.