What Do Land Acknowledgements Do? Experimental Evidence from Australia and US

• In Event: The Politics of Land and Natural Resource Conflict

Abstract

Formal rituals acknowledging the indigenous custodians of land have recently become common features of public life in Western settler states. Although land acknowledgements have become a highly visible aspect of indigenous reconciliation, both academics and the general public are divided over the political consequences of this practice. Supporters believe these rituals are a first step towards generating public awareness and support for material reparations towards indigenous peoples, whereas critics view them as empty gestures that function primarily as a branding exercise for practitioners. Here, we provide new survey experimental evidence in Australia and the United States that help adjudicate between these perspectives. We identify both the average effect of land acknowledgements on public support for reparations towards indigenous people as well as the secondary effect of land acknowledgements on the public image of a corporate practitioner. This paper provides the first concrete evidence for whether land acknowledgements are a first step towards reparations, whether they function to raise the social standing of their practitioners, or both. It contributes to an emerging literature on the dynamics of racial guilt and liberal symbolic politics, and its results will inform a large audience in Western academic, governmental, and corporate sectors eager to understand best practices for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Authors

• Lachlan McNamee, Monash University

• Kyle Peyton, Yale University