Abstract

Critical literature on race and colonialism remains Westcentric and often ignores Eastern European positions. Hungary’s place within the global history of racial colonialism has been selectively interpreted, under-researched, or silenced. This talk shows how Hungarian ‘semiperipheral whiteness’, an in-between position of ‘not-quite-whites’ evading ‘white guilt’ complicates the global histories of ‘Indian play’: representing, comparing to, and identifying or performing as Native Americans by whites. The lecture then asks how this history informs the lack of critical engagement with the heritage of ‘Indian play’ in contemporary Hungarian culture amidst raging Western debates on cultural appropriation, ‘redfacing’, ‘white guilt’, and a decolonial politics increasingly captured by identity politics in neoliberal capitalism.