Cultural encounters in a global age : knowledge, alterity and the world in Mexico-China relations (1972-2012)

Abstract

Mexico and China established official diplomatic relations in 1972. Since then, their mutual economic, political and social links have been developed in an unprecedented way. However, from the perspective of International Relations, the analytical richness of the relationship is obscured by hegemonic conceptualisations of global power, materiality or teleological truths. The literature dealing with the relation in itself has not prioritised a theoretical or holistic approach. Through an analysis of the discursive production of a series of diplomatic, media and academic sources, this thesis demonstrates that, embedded in the great technological and political transformations of the contemporary world, Mexico‐China relations have embodied a complex process of knowledge formation out of the confrontation of their socially constructed conceptions of time, space and otherness: a cultural encounter. During the period from 1972‐2012, not only did Mexico‐China relations involve state and trade interactions, but also a complex intellectual construction of the world and of themselves ranging from the formation of a common anti‐Western identity and the erection of binary oppositions between them, to the formulation of rich proposals for self-criticism and cultural learning. Mexico-China cultural encounter, therefore, provides a fundamental case for understanding world politics and human interaction from a truly global perspective beyond reductionist views of materiality.