The White Indinâ: Native American Appropriations in Hipster Fashion

Jessyca Murphy

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The White Indinâ: Native American Appropriations in Hipster Fashion

In: Unsettling Whiteness

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Jessyca Murphy

Jessyca Murphy
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 127â138

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848882829_013

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In recent years, the popularity of Pocahontas chic â fashion inspired by traditional Native American dress â has sparked significant controversy and even legal action. In February 2012, the Navajo Nation sued Urban Outfitters Inc for alleged copyright infringement and violation of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. Native American activists and allies have successfully made use of social media to incite boycotts against style icons and retailers participating in the trend. Among the most frequently critiqued for their flagrant appropriation of indigenous and other non-white cultures are individuals associated with the contemporary hipster subculture. This chapter examines Native American imagery within hipster fashion through a post-Marxists and post-colonialist framework. In an effort to contextualise the topic, it will begin with a brief survey of recent literature on the oft-debated definition and sociological significance of the hipster. By building on the groundwork of Philip J. Deloria and bell hooks, I will explore how this demographic uses and consumes Native American imagery in an attempt to manifest revolutionary identities and assuage white imperialist guilt. Through Dick Hebdigeâs semiotic analyses of 1970s punk rock culture, I hope to bring closer examination to how hipster style perpetuates hegemonic ideologies about race, conquest and Otherness, despite and sometimes because of its counterculture aesthetic.

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Unsettling Whiteness

E-Book ISBN:: 9781848882829

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2014

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The White Indinâ: Native American Appropriations in Hipster Fashion

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Unsettling Whiteness

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The White Indinâ: Native American Appropriations in Hipster Fashion