We wish to open this conference by acknowledging that the land on which we gather, Kansas City, is the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of many Indigenous Nations, including the Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), Kaw/Kansa, Osage, Shawnee, Nutachi (Missouria), and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Sioux) tribes. These tribes have stewarded this land throughout the generations and we wish to honor the heritage of these Native peoples and what they continue to teach us about the safekeeping of the earth.