Networks of Alterity in Syndemic Times: Sociodigital Media Controversy Around Racism in Mexico

This contribution seeks to contextualize historically a particular conjuncture through which significant changes to the national formation of alterities are expressed and performed by different media outlets and socio-digital networks as the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Mexico. By analysing three significant media events – which have triggered a broader discussion about racism, ethnicity, mestizaje, media and politics in Mexico – I argue for the need to develop a theoretical framework able to account for the constitutive relations between communication technologies, culture industries and singular articulations of local, regional, and cosmopolitan practices of inclusion/exclusion, at a time when notions of indigeneity, afromexicanidad, whiteness and mestizaje are being reshaped politically.