Indigenizing the Alternative Campus Tour at York University, Toronto, Canada

This article presents the Alternative Campus Tour at York University, Toronto, Canada, as a land acknowledgement that critically engages with the neoliberal university and contributes to the indigenization efforts on and of the campus. This article also explores the potential of re-wording common-day academic concepts and words as a means of decolonization. Words and names can lack the animacy and intimacy that are necessary in addressing the current social justice and sustainability crisis. Translated and unique words and concepts from Indigenous languages hold room for innovation. They convey a consistent message of interconnectedness between the human and more-than-human worlds. This article recognizes that some universities have adopted Indigenous-inspired or Indigenous names for various campus attributes. But this article also points to the practice of incorporating Indigenous words, concepts and expressions as routine features on the campus tour rather than confining them to specific disciplines, courses and programmes.