OHNNY DEPP ON A ‘HAPPINESS MISSION’ IN WOUNDED KNEE

Abstract

Land remains the most fundamental of issues in Native North America, followed by those of tribal sovereignty and representation. Johnny Depp offered to buy the iconic land at Wounded Knee and gift it to the Lakota Nation. This article reflects not only upon the limitations, but more importantly upon the political implications of this approach, particularly when it is deployed as a resource for normative and material claims of Indigenous peoples in a settler-colonial society. Looking at the Wounded Knee ownership case through the lenses of postcolonial and affect theories, this article examines how the issues of Indigenous land, sovereignty and representation become linked when Oglala Lakota, as recipients of a philanthropic gift and of a happiness that is not their own, acquire a “happiness duty,”as defined by Sara Ahmed. Depp’s declaration of intention can be read as another text within the colonial archive, given how it justifies intervention with the perceived unhappiness of Native culture. What, then, would it mean politically to recognize unhappiness?