Presenter: Carolin Zorrilla Frias
Faculty Sponsor: Deborah Keisch
School: UMass Amherst
Research Area: Sociology and Anthropology
ABSTRACT
Indigenous communities are faced with the burden of navigating complex systems to reclaim their land. The struggle is rooted in settler colonialism, which has displaced Indigenous communities, forced them to assimilate into European culture, and attempted to erase their cultural identity. Educational institutions have played a major role in the erasure of these events, presenting a history that removes responsibility and minimizes the present-day effects of colonization. Land acknowledgments have become a response to settler guilt. They are a symbolic gesture of recognizing Indigenous dispossession. However, this thesis suggests that acknowledgments are meant to ease settler guilt with no supplemental material change or support of the Land Back movement. Through working with the Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band and their efforts to reclaim their land in Belchertown, this project examines how public and political education can be used as a tool for Indigenous communities to share their experiences and shift local narratives. This campaign seeks to educate the Belchertown community about the significance of the land return and the history of the land they are settled on in order to build practical community support for this land back effort.