Mestizaje as a Catalyst of Ethno-Racial Discrimination: A Study of the Reproduction of Structural Racism in Mexico Through Popular Media and Religion

Abstract

This thesis fills the gap that exists on the analysis and documentation of the ethnoracial positive and negative cultural attributes of the figure of the mestizo given by the media and religious institutions in Mexico. I contribute to the state-of-the-art scholarship on this topic by broadening the analysis through the introduction of additional quantitative and qualitative research, and through the analysis of mass media and the Catholic Church’s positive and negative representations (stereotypes) of mestizos, covering the period from the 16th to the 21st centuries in Mexico. The existing scholarly work has not fully explored and does not answer the question related to media and religious imagery contribution to the attachment of positive or negative social attributes based on skin colour and phenotypical characteristics in Mexico, specifically related to the Mexican mestizo, cornerstone of my analysis. In my conclusion, I contend that in the period covered in this thesis, popular media and the Catholic church have used images based on skin color and ethno-racial characteristics, attaching positive or negative attributes that do not accurately portray the image of a Mexican mestizo, and, consequently, contributing a pigmentocratic culture and structural racism in Mexico.