Native Americans in Visual Countercultures: Shaping Italianicity through Cultural Appropriation

Abstract

An examination of underground print culture within a decolonial framework highlights the important political role of the figure of the Native American in the Italian countercultural movement. Influenced by a West Coast hippie culture, the Italian underground appropriated Native Americanness in various ways, such as using nineteenth-century photographs of Native Americans in the zine culture or fetishizing indigenous lifestyles by performing “ethnic drag” within the Indiani Metropolitani movement in 1977. Underground artist Matteo Guarnaccia developed a psychedelic interpretation of Native Americanness in his zines whereas Pablo Echaurren used detournement to subvert the macho messages of Far West Italian comics like Tex. This article problematizes the widespread appropriation of Native American visual culture while also examining its complex anti-American role in forming a post-war Italian identity.