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Mexico's Contemporary Popular Geopolitics about the Silk Road

  • TZILI-APANGO, Eduardo (Department of Politics and Culture of the Metropolitan Autonomous University of Mexico (Xochimilco campus))
  • Received : 2022.03.16
  • Accepted : 2022.06.10
  • Published : 2022.06.15
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Abstract

This article attempts to explain current social perceptions in Mexico about the Silk Road. Based on a critical geopolitics approach, the author analyzes how the idea of the Silk Road is socially constructed in Mexican popular geopolitics, focusing on studying digital mass media between 2013 and 2020. The main research questions are: how is the Silk Road notion constructed in Mexican popular geopolitics and what are the geopolitical implications for Mexico? The article discovers that in Mexico, the idea of the "Silk Road" is profoundly close to the idea of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) given China's geostrategic discourse that constructs the BRI as a "New Silk Road". The article also argues that Mexico's social-political agency to deal with China may be hindered by divergent social perceptions in favor and against the "Silk Road".

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