Reconfiguring the Terrain of Cultural Governance in Mexico: The Role of the Mexican Film Community in the Era of Neoliberal Globalization

Reconfiguring the Terrain of Cultural Governance in Mexico: The Role of the Mexican Film Community in the Era of Neoliberal Globalization Embracing the dominant neoliberal project, many Mexican elites have prioritized economic growth and market logics over broader social goals. The unleashing of market forces globally,and the adoption of neoliberal policies nationally have had a significant impact on local communities and national culture in Mexico. Focusing on Mexican cultural production, this paper explores the shifting terrain of political struggle in the Mexican film industry. One of the central concerns of this paper is what processes and on what authority the imagined political community in Mexico is constructed, reconstructed, and reproduced in the current era of neoliberal globalization. Historically, political contestation among political, cultural and business elites has been central to the perpetuation of the national cultural project, in this paper, it is argued that the changing political landscape in Mexico has created new conditions for contestation providing sites for previously marginalized forces to challenge the hegemony of neoliberalism.Conceptualising neoliberal globalization and its application by Mexican elites in Polanyian terms?as a double movement?the paper examines the consolidation of the Mexican film coalition as a counter-movement, driven by cultural elites, which emerged to contest the hegemony of market driven politics. In this regard the paper analyzes the ideological and material foundations of this movement. Further, it examines the coalition´s efforts to create a social base from which to reshape the state´s politico-cultural agenda to ensure the survival of an indigenous film industry, thus providing (sub)national identities with an image and voice in the face of globalizing forces. It suggests that organic intellectuals built collective political agency upon the conviction that neoliberal globalization is to be resisted insofar as it subjects the nation to transnational?and hence alien?cultural, political and economic forces. Lastly, it challenges the assumption that in challenging the hegemony of neoliberalism the film community is anti-capitalist. As the evidence will reveal the motivating factors and ideological foundations driving the efforts of the film community are much more complex. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript