« On the geopolitics of settler colonialism: Sveinn M. Jóhannesson, ‘Teutonic Horizons: Geopolitical Thought and Anglo-Saxon Empire in Late-Nineteenth Century Iceland’, Global Studies Quarterly, 6, 2, 2026, #ksag034,
Indigenising or abolishing it? Ashley Kyne, Justin Piché, ‘The Prison as Reconciliation? Considering the “Indigenization” of Carceral Spaces in Canada’, Yellowhead Institute, 10/03/26 »

German Indianhusiasts: Anna Luisa Maria Veronika Schneider, Beyond Indianthusiasm: Tracing Connections between Self-Indigenization, Nationalism, and Settler Coloniality within Contemporary German Public Discourse, doctoral dissertation, University of Saskatchewan, 2026

24Mar26

Abstract: This project engages long-standing paradoxes surrounding the German imaginary of Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island by moving the study of ‘Indianthusiasm’ beyond predominant Eurocentric frames. Indianthusiasm gained its prominence as a broader GermanEuropean infatuation with North American indianness, largely centering on “playing indian” within Europe’s many hobbyist scenes. Too little attention has been paid to the ongoing political functions of self-indigenization within contemporary German and European national(ist) movements. Despite Germany’s undying yearning for ‘indigenousness’ through fictionalized indian narrative across media, pop-culture, and politics, the relevance of Indigenous critiques and critiques of Indigeneity in Germany often remains contested. I therefore scrutinize the structural factors that condition the hyperpresence of indian imagery, symbolism, and rhetoric in German public discourse but simultaneously disconnect them from structures of Indigenous dispossession and erasure like settler colonialism, self-indigenization, and genocide. Applying Critical Discourse Analysis, I problematize Indianthusiasm as a cultural placeholder for German exceptionalism that inverts settler-colonial logics of (self-)indigenization as a nativist politic of normalizing, redeeming, and securing white supremacist and heteropatriarchal modes of German sovereignty. While the desire for a racial-territorial prerogative to eliminatory dominance animated Germans’ performance as Aryan indians during the Third Reich, settler-colonial politics of ‘indigeneity’ continue to shape contemporary German politics of reconciliation, remembrance, and rehabilitation via redemptive performances: as also moral-territorial claims to dominance. By proving the breadth of Indigenous Studies’ theories, methodologies, and disciplinary commitments applicable beyond settler-state boundaries, this project calls to center Indigenous sovereignty (of critique) as a necessary component of the critical study of whiteness in Europe.


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