Programa de actividades

While diplomacy is commonly understood as a state-directed activity, a wide variety of non-state actors engage in diplomatic practices as well. Citizen diplomacy, often understood as any community member’s right to engage and build relationships and understanding across cultures, is frequently praised by scholars and practitioners as one of the most authentic forms of non-state diplomacy. This paper will focus on grassroots citizen diplomacy – an area that received little attention in public diplomacy scholarship. Analyzing empirical data from in-depth interviews with citizen diplomats engaged in grassroots citizen diplomacy activities in several communities in the United States, the paper contextualizes the findings within the framework of diplomacy as a “humanistic knowledge practice” (Constantinou, 2013). The paper also offers a critical analysis of grassroots citizen diplomacy practices as not always and not necessarily counter-hegemonic. This perspective challenges the tendency by scholars and practitioners to romanticize grassroots citizen diplomacy, while showcasing the diversity and complexity of experiences within the broader community of citizen diplomats.

This research examines Emilia Pérez as a case for rethinking cultural diplomacy beyond traditional state-centered and celebratory understandings of soft power. Although not produced as an official diplomatic initiative, the film generated important diplomatic effects through its transnational circulation across festivals, streaming platforms, awards circuits, and global media coverage. Its international success contrasted sharply with the backlash it received in Mexico, where critics, audiences, and cultural actors questioned its representation of violence, forced disappearance, language, identity, and cultural authenticity. The research argues that Emilia Pérez reveals how contemporary diplomacy increasingly operates through non-state actors such as filmmakers, platforms, festivals, critics, and digital publics, while also exposing the limits of soft power frameworks that assume cultural visibility necessarily produces attraction. Through a qualitative analysis of international reception, Mexican criticism, and public counter-narratives, the research explores how negative narratives can generate reputational conflict and symbolic contestation.

This paper defines “Visual Orientalism” as how Western mainstream news visually constructs Global South peoples as essentialized Others, drawing on Edward Said and the visual turn in international politics. Using 1,378 images from the CONACyT-funded study The Image of Mexico in the World, 2006–2016, it analyzes international news imagery of Mexico and Mexicans during the “war against drugs” (2007–2012). Against the backdrop of over 100,000 deaths and intense violence, the paper shows how pictorial tropes—portraying Mexicans as barbaric, exotic, or symptomatic of state failure—reduce complex social and political realities to essentialist images. The findings reveal recurrent visual devices that reinforce orientalist alterity, with implications for international perception and policy. The study calls for greater consideration of visual evidence in analyses of Orientalism and global politics.

This paper analyzes the emergence of a critical form of Mexican cultural diplomacy in China through the instrumentalization of Mexican diasporic actors by the Mexican state. It argues that the Embassy of Mexico in Beijing has increasingly relied on members of the Mexican diaspora—including restaurateurs, digital content creators, and cultural entrepreneurs—to construct decentralized mechanisms of communication and cultural projection aimed at Chinese audiences. Rather than operating exclusively through traditional state-led diplomacy, Mexico’s cultural presence in China is increasingly mediated through everyday practices, commercial spaces, and digital platforms.

The paper focuses on two innovative modalities: first, the gastronomic diplomacy developed by Mexican restaurant owners in cities such as Beijing and Shenzhen, where food becomes a vehicle for the circulation of narratives about Mexican identity, authenticity, and national image; and second, the role of Mexican YouTubers and digital influencers who produce localized audiovisual content about Mexico for Chinese and transnational audiences. From a critical diplomacy perspective, these actors function simultaneously as cultural intermediaries, informal diplomats, and extensions of the Mexican state’s soft power strategy. The study ultimately reflects on the tensions between agency, representation, commercialization, and state instrumentalization in the construction of Mexico’s contemporary image in China.