Migrations: A World on the Move Podcast – Dispossession – Cornell University and Indigenous Dispossession Project

On this episode of the Migrations: A World on the Move podcast, we learn from Professor Kurt Jordan and Laiken Jordahl about dispossession: what it is and how it is affecting Indigenous people, wildlife, and ecosystems. Jordan works in the Finger Lakes region of New York, studying the effects of institutions like Cornell on the Indigenous populations of the region. Jordahl is an activist and ally helping to bring awareness to the harm caused by wall construction at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Listen to the podcast here.

Cornell University Land Acknowledgement

Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ’ (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ’ are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York State, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ’ dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ’ people, past and present, to these lands and waters.

This land acknowledgment has been reviewed and approved by the traditional Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ’ leadership.

In addition to the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ’ land acknowledgment but separate from it, the AIISP faculty would like to emphasize: Cornell’s founding was enabled in the course of a national genocide by the sale of almost one million acres of stolen Indian land under the Morrill Act of 1862. To date the university has neither officially acknowledged its complicity in this theft nor has it offered any form of restitution to the hundreds of Native communities impacted.