Notes on European Imaginaries of Indigineity

Any time I mention Indigenous communities, either those near where I lived in Maine or others across the continent, to my (white) Italian friends, they'll be curious. But how many recognized groups are there? But they still exist in the United States? Meanwhile, often we're talking in my environmental anthropology classes about Indigenous realities, mostly from the Amazon region. Starting from the "ontological turn" of Vivieros de Castros and others in the 1990s, a more radical branch of academia admits to equally valid forms of living, being, and knowing as practiced among people with longstanding working relationships to everything around them.

But I note two things: first, that these are still mediated relationships, for the most part. The anthropologist has learned how to be fairly non-extractive (at least in my classroom) and dedicated to collaboration, healing, and trust. This is, however, far from 'self-translation,' where Indigenous folks choose when and how to write 'outwards' beyond their community about their own realities. Second, our focus (in an international program) is shifted away from any communities within the boundaries of the USA. I interpret this as a sign of ongoing structural erasure of Indigenous people in my country, despite the activism that links Native rights issues to Indigenous allies worldwide.

Three exhibits on the attitude toward "Indians" or other US Indigenous stereotypes.

1) A sticker on a wall not far from my Italian university: a white silhouette with a feathered headdress sits in profile against a black background. I assume this sticker was created, distributed, and placed by people who do not identify as Indigenous to Turtle Island. So why is it here? I have a suspicion that it's a sign of style: the idea of Native tradition is compelling from afar, connoting a noble and proud life in the face of colonial occupation. Stereotypes conjure up ideas of political defiance that create beauty.

2) Indians of the Concrete Jungle: the name used by a group of Swedish climate activists when deflating SUV tires in 2007. Author Andreas Malm, who tells the story in his book How to Blow Up a Pipeline says that it is "admittedly a silly and even inappropriate name. (We received an email from a Native American upset about our cultural appropriation.)" The entire fight and the news coverage around it is seeped in Wild West language: a counter-group called the Cowboys sprung up and promised "some Indian to bathe in blood any night now." Though Malm acknowledges the insensitive choice, the implications goes deeper than he realizes. As a colonial term, "Indians" activates an antagonistic relationship between occupier and occupied (which does align with the group's intentions). However, to brand oneself with the term is captializing on a racialization of Indigenous groups to increase one's own masculine bravado. If activists were doing the same on US soil, we'd connect them to alt-right hate groups or the strange fetishistic attitude toward Indigenous identity from the 20th century (and ongoing...).

3) TEX: A popular Italian comic book that is still spotted at new and used book stalls. The copy below was found in an friend's house, one of a series of perhaps twenty. The series follows a white anglo cowboy who keeps law and order in the desert southwest (e.g. "Arizona") against a host of untamed monsters and bandits, who are always marked as Indian or Mexican through signs of face paint, headdresses, bandannas, dark skin, bare chests, and other racialized markers. From a glance, it is clear that the Indians are portrayed as lazy and deceitful.

Across all three exhibits I see a European fascination with the American Indian as imagined by 20th century American media. There is a clear disconnect between the realities of Indigenous people within the US and what is imagined when I say "Indigenous people" to a person raised in a European (or at least an Italian) context. This is complemented by a European academic gaze toward the Andes and Amazon as the sources of a contemporary Indigenous critique – resembling the soft Orientalism toward East Asia that springs up daily in Italian classrooms – despite the self-produced scholarship from countless Indigenous scholars in what is now called North America. I will keep sharing among my classmates stories and materials that can more accurately reflect the Indigenous realities in Maine and elsewhere on Turtle Island.