Introduction: (Why) Is Europe Still Following in Winnetou’s Footsteps?

The Introduction, “(Why) IsRuntić, Sanja Europe Still Following in Winnetou’s Footsteps?” explains the genesis of the book (Un)Following in Winnetou’s Footsteps: Representations of North American Indigeneity in Central Europe and examines the current situation in the discipline of Indigenous studies in Central Europe in light of the 2022 Ravensburger/Winnetou controversy controversy, Ravensburger Verlag controversy. It discusses the role of sensationalist media’s misleading reporting in creating the controversy by fueling antagonism and turning the matter of Indigenous objectificationStereotype and appropriation in the European cultural space into a heated debate on censorship and freedom of speech. Analyzing various responses to the debate in German and Croatian settings and demonstrating the fallacy of arguments based on erroneous information, Sanja Runtić maintains that the strident frenzy against “cancel culture,” which was spurred by the controversy, itself “canceled” any voice not in line with the “anti-wokeWoke” trend, including the voices of Indigenous people themselves. Employing Edward Said’s and Stuart Hall’s theories on the correlation between representational practices and the (re)production of colonial ideologies and domination, Dustin Tahmahkera’s definition of representational jurisdiction, and Jesse Wente’s notion of narrative sovereignty, Chapter 1 raises a series of questions confronting the continuing discourse of Indigenous erasure in European cultural industries and emphasizes a vital need to facilitate an informed dialogueDialogue in order to expose the mechanisms as well as the antinomies and tensions inherent in the politics of Indigenous representationRepresentation in (Central) Europe. This chapter also provides an overview of the other chapters and foregrounds the contribution of the book’s cross-cultural and comparative approach.