I’ve been asked recently whether we will begin incorporating formal land acknowledgements at the opening of our events.
It’s a fair question. In many spaces now, it has become standard practice to acknowledge that we gather on unceded Indigenous land. Montréal sits within those complex and ongoing colonial histories. That is fact. Not symbolism. Not metaphor.
But I’ve hesitated.
Not because I deny that history. Not because I think it’s irrelevant.
But because I am wary of performance without substance.
Tension is a queer rope space. We practice a Japanese-origin tradition that has evolved globally. We operate inside capitalism. We teach consent, power exchange, and harm reduction in a city shaped by colonization. None of this is culturally neutral. None of it is simple.
So the question for me isn’t “Is it customary?”
The question is: What is the purpose?
If an acknowledgement is spoken and nothing changes, what has it done?
If it becomes a script before every gathering, does it retain meaning?
If we perform one political awareness ritual, are we then expected to enumerate every global conflict to be considered morally consistent?
These aren’t rhetorical questions. They are tensions I sit with.
Rope and Power
We teach rope.
Rope is not neutral.
It deals directly with power — who holds it, how it moves, how it is negotiated, how it can harm.
That means we are already working inside layered realities:
- Japanese lineage and cultural transmission
- Western adaptation and reinterpretation
- Queer identity and marginalization
- Capitalist infrastructure
- Colonial land history
- Interpersonal power dynamics
When we say rope is relational, we mean it at every scale.
So when someone asks us to add a land acknowledgement, it doesn’t exist in isolation. It touches every one of those layers.
The Risk of Ritual Without Responsibility
I don’t want to adopt something because it is “standard practice.”
I don’t want to borrow Indigenous frameworks as aesthetic moral currency.
I don’t want to create the illusion of ethical completeness by reciting a sentence.
At the same time, I don’t want silence to be interpreted as indifference.
That is the real tension.
Many land acknowledgements have become institutional reflexes. Spoken. Applauded. Forgotten. Meanwhile, structures remain unchanged.
If we speak, it must be integrated into how we actually operate.
What We Actually Do
Instead of ritual statements, we try to build structural responses:
- Accountability Circles rooted in restorative dialogue
- Scholarships and exchange programs that lower barriers for marginalized communities, including Indigenous participants
- Consent-centered pedagogy
- Harm reduction practices
- Open conversation about power
- A clear stance against violence and harm
These are imperfect systems; but they are systems that DO something.
We aim to hold this space with dignity, safe(r) practices, and accountability.
Not as branding but as operational reality.
Does that replace a land acknowledgement? Not necessarily.
But it changes the frame.
Layered Reality
Here is the truth:
We practice a Japanese-origin rope tradition in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal - pronounced "jo-ja-gay" in the Kanien’kéha (Mohawk) language - on land shaped by layered and ongoing histories of colonialism. This work sits within overlapping realities; lineage, colonization, queerness, capitalism, and power. Our position is not neutrality; it is a refusal to reduce complex human realities into performative statements.
We oppose violence, war, and all forms of systemic oppression, including those rooted in colonization.
We support the right of people to live with dignity, safety, and self-determination.
We support inclusion in practice, and we believe dignity ends where harm begins.
But we are not a geopolitical forum.
We are a rope space.
Our work is grounded in consent, care, and accountability, and we reject any ideology that justifies harm.
Our responsibility is to hold the container we claim to hold; education of consent, accountability, power dynamics, community practice, all this without pretending we can resolve global history from a microphone.
So Where Do We Land?
If we incorporate geographic or historical context at the beginning of an event, it will not be to check a box.
It will be to situate us.
Not as confession.
Not as political ritual.
Not as moral branding.
But as acknowledgment that we exist within layered systems and that our responsibility is to practice ethically within them.
And if someone asks, challenges, or disagrees?
We are open to conversation.
Because that, ultimately, is the point.
Not performance.
Not silence.
Responsibility.
