My Job Is to Write about Chile. The Writer-consul Gabriela Mistral in Chilean Public Diplomacy, 1932-1957.
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Published
01-06-2025
Sylvia Dummer Scheel
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2893-4660
Abstract
This article focuses on Gabriela Mistral's role as Chile's promoter from her consular post between 1932 and 1957, inserting her work within the country's incipient public and cultural diplomacy. Her relationship with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is observed by understanding Mistral as an "intermediate agent" of foreign propaganda in relation with different aspects: Mistral's level of personal initiative in cultural propaganda matters, her work transferring knowledge on cultural diplomacy to her superiors, and the autonomy with which she worked. In this way, both the poet's individual work and the institutional functioning of foreign propaganda are explored. Ultimately, her case study suggests that the public and cultural diplomacy developed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not very centralized and was largely driven by Chile's representatives abroad.
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Keywords
Gabriela Mistral, public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, foreign propaganda, writer-diplomat, diplomatic experience
References
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ANG, Ien, Yudhishthir Raj ISAR, y Phillip MAR. «Cultural diplomacy: beyond the national interest?» International Journal of Cultural Policy, 21, 4, 2015, pp.365-81.
BRITTON, John A. «Propaganda, property, and the image of stability: the mexican government and the US print media, 1921-1929». Secolas Annals, XIX, marzo 1988.
BRUNO, Paula. «Women and Diplomatic Life: An Overview with Methodological Directions and Proposals». En Elisabet CARBÓ-CATALAN y Diana ROIG SANZ, Culture as Soft Power: Bridging Cultural Relations, Intellectual Cooperation, and Cultural Diplomacy, . Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter, 2022, pp.43-64
BRUNO, Paula, Alexandra PITA, y Marina ALVARADO. Embajadoras culturales. Mujeres latinoamericanas y vida diplomática, 1860-1960. Rosario, Prohistoria, 2022.
CABELLO HUTT, Claudia. Artesana de sí misma: Gabriela Mistral, una intelectual en cuerpo y palabra, West Lafayette, Purdue University Press, 2018.
CLARKE, David. «Theorising the Role of Cultural Products in Cultural Diplomacy from a Cultural Studies Perspective». International Journal of Cultural Policy 22, 2, 2016, pp.147-163.
CULL, Nicholas J. Public Diplomacy: Lessons from the Past, Los Angeles, Figueroa Press, 2009.
CULL, Nicholas J. «Public Diplomacy before Gullion: The Evolution of a Phrase». En Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy. Abingdon, Routledge, 2008, pp.13-18
DAVID-FOX, Michael. Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941, Oxford University Press, 2012.
DE HEREDIA, Mariana. «From Nation-Building to Nation-Branding: Literature and Cultural Diplomacy in Twentieth Century Mexico». Ph.D., Stanford University, 2018.
DÉLANO, Luis Enrique. Sobre todo Madrid. Santiago, Universitaria, 1970.
DUMMER SCHEEL, Sylvia. «¿De quién es la diplomacia pública? El rol del Departamento Autónomo de Prensa y Publicidad (DAPP) en la propaganda exterior cardenista». Estudios de Historia Moderna Contemporanea de Mexico, 55, 2018, pp. 279-312
DUMMER SCHEEL, Sylvia. Sin tropicalismos ni exageraciones. La construcción de la imagen de Chile para la Exposición Iberoamericana de Sevilla de 1929. Santiago, RIL, 2012.
DUMMER SCHEEL, Sylvia, Charlotte FAUCHER, y Camila GATICA MIZALA. «Rethinking Soft Power in History: Transnational Circulation, Collaboration, and Identities». En Sylvia DUMMER SCHEEL, Charlotte FAUCHER, y Camila GATICA MIZALA, Soft Power beyond the Nation, Washington, Georgetown University Press, 2024
DUMONT, Juliette. «Chilean Cultural Diplomacy and Cultural Internationalisms: An Entangled History (1927–1940s)». En Elisabet CARBÓ-CATALAN y Diana ROIG
SANZ, Culture as Soft Power: Bridging Cultural Relations, Intellectual Cooperation, and Cultural Diplomacy, Berlín, De Gruyter, 2022, pp.99-120.
DUMONT, Juliette. Diplomaties culturelles et fabrique des identités: Argentine, Brésil, Chili (1919-1946), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2018.
ENSLEN, Joshua Alma. «Embodying the Nation: Literature and Diplomacy in Brazil». Ph.D., University of Georgia, 2008.
FAUCHER, Charlotte. «Women, Gender and the Professionalisation of French Cultural Diplomacy in Britain, 1900–1940». The English Historical Review 136, 583, 2021, pp.1513-1541
GATICA MIZALA, Camila. «Cinema and Education: Translating the International Educational Cinematographic Institute to 1930s Chile». En Elisabet CARBÓ-CATALAN y Diana ROIG SANZ, Culture as Soft Power: Bridging Cultural Relations, Intellectual Cooperation, and Cultural Diplomacy, Berlín, De Gruyter, 2022, pp.147-168
GIENOW-HECHT, Jessica C. E., y Mark C. DONFRIED. «The Model of Cultural Diplomacy. Power, Distance and the Promise of Civil Society». En Jessica C. E. GIENOW-HECHT y Mark C. DONFRIED Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy, New York, Berghahn Books, 2010, pp.13-32
HALL, Melanie, y Erik GOLDSTEIN. «Writers, the Clergy, and the ‘Diplomatisation of Culture’: Sub-Structures of Anglo-American Diplomacy, 1820–1914 1». En On the Fringes of Diplomacy. Routledge, 2011.
HART, Justin. Empire of Ideas: The Origins of Public Diplomacy and the Transformation of U. S. Foreign Policy. Oxford University Press, 2013.
HEINE, Jorge. «From Club to Network Diplomacy». En Andrew COOPER, Jorge HEINE, y Ramesh THAKUR, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy, Oxford University Press, 2013.
HORAN, Elizabeth. «Clandestinidades de Gabriela Mistral en Los Ángeles 1946-1948». En Magda SEPÚLVEDA, Chile urbano: La ciudad en la literatura y el cine, Santiago, Cuarto Propio, 2013.
HORAN, Elizabeth. «"Una mixtura de calvario y arcadia”: la cónsul Gabriela Mistral en Portugal, 1935-1937». Anales de Literatura Chilena, 11, 2009, pp.13-43.
HORAN, Elizabeth. «Unrepentant Traveler, Accidental Diplomat, Triumphant Nobel: Gabriela Mistral in Wartime Brazil». Anales de Literatura Chilena, 24, 2015, pp.253-278.
HORAN, Elizabeth. Mistral. Una vida. Solo me halla quien me ama, 1889-1922. Santiago, Lumen, 2023.
MISTRAL, Gabriela. Doris, vida mía. Cartas. Santiago, Lumen, 2021.
MISTRAL, Gabriela. Obra reunida de Gabriela Mistral. Vol. VII, Santiago, Ediciones Biblioteca Nacional, 2020.
MISTRAL, Gabriela. Pensando a Chile. Una visión esencial sobre nuestra identidad. Editado por Jaime QUEZADA. Santiago, Catalonia, 2017.
MISTRAL, Gabriela, y Pedro Pablo ZEGERS B., Gabriela y México. RIL, 2007.
MITCHELL, J. M. International Cultural Relations, Nueva York, Routledge, 2015.
MONTT STRABUCCHI, Maria. «Nonlinear Cultural Diplomacy: A Latin American Traveler to China during the Cold War». En Sylvia DUMMER SCHEEL, Charlotte FAUCHER, y Camila GATICA MIZALA, Soft Power beyond the Nation, pp.178-194. Washington, Georgetown University Press, 2024.
MORAGA VALLE, Fabio. «“Lo mejor de Chile está ahora en México”, ideas políticas y labor pedagógica de Gabriela Mistral en México (1922-1924)». Historia Mexicana, 63, 3, 2014, pp.1181-1247.
NISBETT, Melissa. «Who Holds the Power in Soft Power?» Arts & International Affairs 1, 1, 2016.
OSGOOD, Kenneth A., y Brian C. ETHERIDGE. «Introduction. The New International History Meets the New Cultural History: Public Diplomacy and U.S. Foreign Relations». En Kenneth A. OSGOOD y Brian C. ETHERIDGE, The United States and Public Diplomacy: New Directions in Cultural and International History, Leiden, BRILL, 2010.
PITA GONZÁLEZ, Alexandra. «Gabriela Mistral, Palma Guillén y Concha Romero. Entre amistades, redes intelectuales y organismos de cooperación». En Paula BRUNO, Marina ALVARADO, y Alexandra PITA GONZÁLEZ, Embajadoras culturales. Mujeres latinoamericanas y vida diplomática, 1860-1960, 2022, pp. 129-164
PITA GONZÁLEZ, Alexandra. «América (Latina) en París: Mistral, Reyes y Torres Bodet en la Colección Iberoamericana, 1927-1940». En Fabián HERRERA LEÓN y Yannick WEHRLI, América Latina y el Internacionalismo Ginebrino de Entreguerras: Implicaciones y Resonancias, México, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 2019, pp.241-275.
PIZARRO, Ana. Gabriela Mistral: el proyecto de Lucila, Santiago, Lom, 2005.
QUEZADA, Jaime. «Gabriela Mistral. Viajes». Camino a Gabriela Mistral (blog), 2021. https://www.caminoagabrielamistral.cl/viajes.
RIVERA MIR, Sebastián. Ningún revolucionario es extranjero. Intercambios educativos y exilios latinoamericanos en el México cardenista. Zinacantepec: El Colegio Mexiquense, 2023.
SCHNEIDER, Cynthia, «Cultural Diplomacy: Hard to Define, but You’d Know It If You Saw It». The Brown Journal of World Affairs 13, 1, 2006, pp.191-203.
SMITH, Michael, «Carrancista Propaganda and the Print Media in the United States: An Overview of Institutions», The Americas 52, 2, 1995, pp.155-174.
STRAUSS NEUMAN, Martha. El reconocimiento de Alvaro Obregón: Opinión americana y propaganda mexicana. México D.F., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1983.
TAGLE, Matías. Gabriela Mistral y los Presidentes De Chile, Santiago, Ediciones UC, 2022.
ULLOA, Carla. «La construcción de una intelectual: Gabriela Mistral en el campo cultural mexicano 1922-1924». México D.F., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2019.
WILKINS, Douglas Barry. «Gabriela con valija diplomática. La génesis de la vida consular de Gabriela Mistral», Contextos: Estudios de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, 33, 2015, pp.113-24.
ANG, Ien, Yudhishthir Raj ISAR, y Phillip MAR. «Cultural diplomacy: beyond the national interest?» International Journal of Cultural Policy, 21, 4, 2015, pp.365-81.
BRITTON, John A. «Propaganda, property, and the image of stability: the mexican government and the US print media, 1921-1929». Secolas Annals, XIX, marzo 1988.
BRUNO, Paula. «Women and Diplomatic Life: An Overview with Methodological Directions and Proposals». En Elisabet CARBÓ-CATALAN y Diana ROIG SANZ, Culture as Soft Power: Bridging Cultural Relations, Intellectual Cooperation, and Cultural Diplomacy, . Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter, 2022, pp.43-64
BRUNO, Paula, Alexandra PITA, y Marina ALVARADO. Embajadoras culturales. Mujeres latinoamericanas y vida diplomática, 1860-1960. Rosario, Prohistoria, 2022.
CABELLO HUTT, Claudia. Artesana de sí misma: Gabriela Mistral, una intelectual en cuerpo y palabra, West Lafayette, Purdue University Press, 2018.
CLARKE, David. «Theorising the Role of Cultural Products in Cultural Diplomacy from a Cultural Studies Perspective». International Journal of Cultural Policy 22, 2, 2016, pp.147-163.
CULL, Nicholas J. Public Diplomacy: Lessons from the Past, Los Angeles, Figueroa Press, 2009.
CULL, Nicholas J. «Public Diplomacy before Gullion: The Evolution of a Phrase». En Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy. Abingdon, Routledge, 2008, pp.13-18
DAVID-FOX, Michael. Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941, Oxford University Press, 2012.
DE HEREDIA, Mariana. «From Nation-Building to Nation-Branding: Literature and Cultural Diplomacy in Twentieth Century Mexico». Ph.D., Stanford University, 2018.
DÉLANO, Luis Enrique. Sobre todo Madrid. Santiago, Universitaria, 1970.
DUMMER SCHEEL, Sylvia. «¿De quién es la diplomacia pública? El rol del Departamento Autónomo de Prensa y Publicidad (DAPP) en la propaganda exterior cardenista». Estudios de Historia Moderna Contemporanea de Mexico, 55, 2018, pp. 279-312
DUMMER SCHEEL, Sylvia. Sin tropicalismos ni exageraciones. La construcción de la imagen de Chile para la Exposición Iberoamericana de Sevilla de 1929. Santiago, RIL, 2012.
DUMMER SCHEEL, Sylvia, Charlotte FAUCHER, y Camila GATICA MIZALA. «Rethinking Soft Power in History: Transnational Circulation, Collaboration, and Identities». En Sylvia DUMMER SCHEEL, Charlotte FAUCHER, y Camila GATICA MIZALA, Soft Power beyond the Nation, Washington, Georgetown University Press, 2024
DUMONT, Juliette. «Chilean Cultural Diplomacy and Cultural Internationalisms: An Entangled History (1927–1940s)». En Elisabet CARBÓ-CATALAN y Diana ROIG
SANZ, Culture as Soft Power: Bridging Cultural Relations, Intellectual Cooperation, and Cultural Diplomacy, Berlín, De Gruyter, 2022, pp.99-120.
DUMONT, Juliette. Diplomaties culturelles et fabrique des identités: Argentine, Brésil, Chili (1919-1946), Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2018.
ENSLEN, Joshua Alma. «Embodying the Nation: Literature and Diplomacy in Brazil». Ph.D., University of Georgia, 2008.
FAUCHER, Charlotte. «Women, Gender and the Professionalisation of French Cultural Diplomacy in Britain, 1900–1940». The English Historical Review 136, 583, 2021, pp.1513-1541
GATICA MIZALA, Camila. «Cinema and Education: Translating the International Educational Cinematographic Institute to 1930s Chile». En Elisabet CARBÓ-CATALAN y Diana ROIG SANZ, Culture as Soft Power: Bridging Cultural Relations, Intellectual Cooperation, and Cultural Diplomacy, Berlín, De Gruyter, 2022, pp.147-168
GIENOW-HECHT, Jessica C. E., y Mark C. DONFRIED. «The Model of Cultural Diplomacy. Power, Distance and the Promise of Civil Society». En Jessica C. E. GIENOW-HECHT y Mark C. DONFRIED Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy, New York, Berghahn Books, 2010, pp.13-32
HALL, Melanie, y Erik GOLDSTEIN. «Writers, the Clergy, and the ‘Diplomatisation of Culture’: Sub-Structures of Anglo-American Diplomacy, 1820–1914 1». En On the Fringes of Diplomacy. Routledge, 2011.
HART, Justin. Empire of Ideas: The Origins of Public Diplomacy and the Transformation of U. S. Foreign Policy. Oxford University Press, 2013.
HEINE, Jorge. «From Club to Network Diplomacy». En Andrew COOPER, Jorge HEINE, y Ramesh THAKUR, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy, Oxford University Press, 2013.
HORAN, Elizabeth. «Clandestinidades de Gabriela Mistral en Los Ángeles 1946-1948». En Magda SEPÚLVEDA, Chile urbano: La ciudad en la literatura y el cine, Santiago, Cuarto Propio, 2013.
HORAN, Elizabeth. «"Una mixtura de calvario y arcadia”: la cónsul Gabriela Mistral en Portugal, 1935-1937». Anales de Literatura Chilena, 11, 2009, pp.13-43.
HORAN, Elizabeth. «Unrepentant Traveler, Accidental Diplomat, Triumphant Nobel: Gabriela Mistral in Wartime Brazil». Anales de Literatura Chilena, 24, 2015, pp.253-278.
HORAN, Elizabeth. Mistral. Una vida. Solo me halla quien me ama, 1889-1922. Santiago, Lumen, 2023.
MISTRAL, Gabriela. Doris, vida mía. Cartas. Santiago, Lumen, 2021.
MISTRAL, Gabriela. Obra reunida de Gabriela Mistral. Vol. VII, Santiago, Ediciones Biblioteca Nacional, 2020.
MISTRAL, Gabriela. Pensando a Chile. Una visión esencial sobre nuestra identidad. Editado por Jaime QUEZADA. Santiago, Catalonia, 2017.
MISTRAL, Gabriela, y Pedro Pablo ZEGERS B., Gabriela y México. RIL, 2007.
MITCHELL, J. M. International Cultural Relations, Nueva York, Routledge, 2015.
MONTT STRABUCCHI, Maria. «Nonlinear Cultural Diplomacy: A Latin American Traveler to China during the Cold War». En Sylvia DUMMER SCHEEL, Charlotte FAUCHER, y Camila GATICA MIZALA, Soft Power beyond the Nation, pp.178-194. Washington, Georgetown University Press, 2024.
MORAGA VALLE, Fabio. «“Lo mejor de Chile está ahora en México”, ideas políticas y labor pedagógica de Gabriela Mistral en México (1922-1924)». Historia Mexicana, 63, 3, 2014, pp.1181-1247.
NISBETT, Melissa. «Who Holds the Power in Soft Power?» Arts & International Affairs 1, 1, 2016.
OSGOOD, Kenneth A., y Brian C. ETHERIDGE. «Introduction. The New International History Meets the New Cultural History: Public Diplomacy and U.S. Foreign Relations». En Kenneth A. OSGOOD y Brian C. ETHERIDGE, The United States and Public Diplomacy: New Directions in Cultural and International History, Leiden, BRILL, 2010.
PITA GONZÁLEZ, Alexandra. «Gabriela Mistral, Palma Guillén y Concha Romero. Entre amistades, redes intelectuales y organismos de cooperación». En Paula BRUNO, Marina ALVARADO, y Alexandra PITA GONZÁLEZ, Embajadoras culturales. Mujeres latinoamericanas y vida diplomática, 1860-1960, 2022, pp. 129-164
PITA GONZÁLEZ, Alexandra. «América (Latina) en París: Mistral, Reyes y Torres Bodet en la Colección Iberoamericana, 1927-1940». En Fabián HERRERA LEÓN y Yannick WEHRLI, América Latina y el Internacionalismo Ginebrino de Entreguerras: Implicaciones y Resonancias, México, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, 2019, pp.241-275.
PIZARRO, Ana. Gabriela Mistral: el proyecto de Lucila, Santiago, Lom, 2005.
QUEZADA, Jaime. «Gabriela Mistral. Viajes». Camino a Gabriela Mistral (blog), 2021. https://www.caminoagabrielamistral.cl/viajes.
RIVERA MIR, Sebastián. Ningún revolucionario es extranjero. Intercambios educativos y exilios latinoamericanos en el México cardenista. Zinacantepec: El Colegio Mexiquense, 2023.
SCHNEIDER, Cynthia, «Cultural Diplomacy: Hard to Define, but You’d Know It If You Saw It». The Brown Journal of World Affairs 13, 1, 2006, pp.191-203.
SMITH, Michael, «Carrancista Propaganda and the Print Media in the United States: An Overview of Institutions», The Americas 52, 2, 1995, pp.155-174.
STRAUSS NEUMAN, Martha. El reconocimiento de Alvaro Obregón: Opinión americana y propaganda mexicana. México D.F., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1983.
TAGLE, Matías. Gabriela Mistral y los Presidentes De Chile, Santiago, Ediciones UC, 2022.
ULLOA, Carla. «La construcción de una intelectual: Gabriela Mistral en el campo cultural mexicano 1922-1924». México D.F., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2019.
WILKINS, Douglas Barry. «Gabriela con valija diplomática. La génesis de la vida consular de Gabriela Mistral», Contextos: Estudios de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, 33, 2015, pp.113-24.
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