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El artículo examina el papel de los museos satélite como operadores paraestatales del imaginario global, centrando su atención en su capacidad para articular lógicas de poder simbólico, estrategias de legitimación y dinámicas de agencia cultural en red. A través de un enfoque comparativo y crítico, se argumenta que estos dispositivos no deben entenderse como simples extensiones de museos centrales, sino como engranajes estratégicos de una gobernanza cultural que excede el marco estatal y se inserta en circuitos transnacionales de acumulación simbólica, mediación política y disputa epistemológica. El estudio se estructura a partir de una doble interrogación: por un lado, se indaga en los modelos de agencia institucional desplegados por los museos satélite, evaluando su capacidad de reconfigurar los órdenes hegemónicos de representación y autoridad cultural; por otro, se analizan los marcos semánticos y dispositivos curatoriales mediante los cuales estos actores se legitiman discursivamente como nodos de valor cultural, innovación y universalidad.
El marco teórico articula tres ejes fundamentales: la crítica de la colonialidad del saber y de las formas de legitimación epistemológica en las instituciones culturales (Mignolo, 2011; Azoulay, 2019; Sharpe, 2016); el análisis de las estructuras simbólicas de poder y acumulación cultural (Bourdieu, 1986; Zukin, 2010; Harvey, 2004); y los enfoques críticos de las relaciones internacionales en clave de diplomacia cultural, hegemonía discursiva y el poder blando paraestatal (Gramsci, 1971; Guzzini, 2000; Grincheva, 2020). Esta articulación permite desplazar la mirada desde una visión funcionalista o institucionalista hacia una lectura relacional, situada y conflictiva de los museos satélite como actores de mediación global.
Desde una epistemología crítica postpositivista, el estudio adopta una perspectiva que concibe los museos como productores activos de discurso, agencia y posicionamiento institucional. El análisis se apoya en dos dispositivos metodológicos: en primer lugar, se realiza un análisis semántico de los discursos institucionales mediante técnicas de minería de texto, redes léxicas y análisis de sentimiento, con el fin de identificar estructuras afectivas, marcos performativos y regímenes de legitimación; en segundo lugar, se construye un modelo posicional tridimensional que permite mapear las trayectorias institucionales en función de su autonomía, anclaje territorial e instrumentalización simbólica, así como identificar umbrales de transformación estructural que habilitan o restringen su agencia. Esta estrategia permite cruzar las lógicas del decir (discursos) y del hacer (estructuras), ofreciendo una lectura integrada de los museos satélite como actores complejos en el sistema cultural transnacional.
El artículo concluye que los museos satélite son agentes clave en la reconfiguración del orden simbólico internacional, pero que su capacidad transformadora depende de su inserción estructural, del margen de maniobra institucional y del tipo de alianzas epistémicas que logren establecer. Su estudio permite abrir un campo de análisis sobre la circulación de legitimidades, la economía política del reconocimiento y la colonialidad persistente de las formas culturales globales.
This article examines the role of satellite museums as parastatal operators within the global symbolic order, focusing on their capacity to articulate legitimising narratives and operate as agents of interna-tional relations beyond the nation-state. Challenging the assumption that satellite museums are mere extensions of centralised museum brands, the study conceptualises them as strategic devices embedded in transnational cultural governance circuits. These institutions serve as symbolic intermediaries that balance local grounding with global prominence, facilitating the creation and perpetuation of a conten-tious global imaginary. The article argues that satellite museums have become increasingly relevant as soft power instruments, not only for state-led diplomacy but also for non-state actors involved in the international projection of cultural narratives and epistemic authority. Their analysis provides a crucial entry point into understanding how museums function as operational nodes within wider systems of symbolic governance, operating across institutional, urban, and geopolitical registers. In doing so, the article invites a reconceptualization of cultural infrastructures not as passive conveyors of national image but as active assemblages that reconfigure spatial, political, and epistemic alignments.A critical epistemological framework, drawing on post-positivist approaches in international relations and critical museology, situates the research. It mobilises three intersecting theoretical axes. First, the article addresses critiques of the coloniality of knowledge, utilising the works of Walter Mignolo (2011), Ariella Azoulay (2019), and Christina Sharpe (2016) to examine the epistemic hierarchies and forms of authority perpetuated by museum narratives and curatorial practices deconstructing the universalist claims of cultural legitimacy often attached to global museological discourse. Second, the study builds on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic capital (1986), Sharon Zukin’s notion of the urban cultural economy (2010), and David Harvey’s analysis of the spatial logics of accumulation (2004). These perspectives allow for a structural understanding of how museums are institutionalised as cultural infrastructures that contribute to the branding of cities, the mobilisation of heritage as an economic asset, and the conversion of cultural capital into political influence. This axis is particularly relevant in the context of city-branding strategies and public–private partnerships that increasingly shape the institutional design and narrative agendas of satellite museums. Third, the article intersects with critical theories of cultural diplomacy and international cultural relations, informed by the work of Antonio Gramsci (1971), Stefano Guzzini (2000), and Pierre Bourdieu (1986). This approach provides a lens to analyse museums not only as heritage institutions but also as strategic agents operating within paradiplomatic frameworks, ne-gotiating authority through cultural narratives and performative projection. Taken together, these axes construct a theoretical matrix capable of interrogating the symbolic economies and power asymmetries that underpin the emergence and operation of satellite museums as transnational actors.The methodological framework combines semantic discourse analysis and positional modelling. From a semantic perspective, the article applies natural language processing techniques, specifically net-work-based text mining, sentiment analysis using the AFINN lexicon, and modularity detection through the Louvain algorithm (Blondel et al., 2008), to map the emotional tone, topical diversity, and performa-tive regimes present in institutional texts. The corpus is designed to capture both foundational and re-cent articulations of institutional identity, allowing shifts in semantic framing and rhetorical positioning to emerge. From a structural standpoint, a three-dimensional positional model is used to locate institutions within a matrix of structural dependence, cultural agency, and symbolic legitimacy. This model enables the identification of thresholds of transformation, moments in which a museum’s trajectory either con-solidates institutional autonomy or reveals forms of subordination and stagnation. Such thresholds func-tion as analytical tools that not only describe shifts in institutional orientation but also uncover tensions between declared missions and operational constraints. Together, these methods enable an integrated reading of how discourse and structure interact in shaping the agency, legitimacy, and transformation potential of satellite museums within global cultural systems.The empirical analysis focuses on two interconnected levels: discourse and position. The first level ex-amines the discursive strategies through which satellite museums produce cultural authority and legit-imacy. It analyses institutional texts using semantic network analysis to identify how these institutions construct affective engagement, rhetorical universality, and epistemic validation. The results reveal a consistent strategic use of aspirational rhetoric—terms such as bridge, platform, universal, and dialogue recur across contexts—signalling attempts to secure legitimacy through the lan-guage of accessibility and global relevance. Yet this convergence often conceals deeper contradictions between curatorial ambition and structural reproduction. The affective and semantic structures of these discourses are shown to operate as tools of soft power mediation, shaping public perception while en-coding institutional hierarchies. This dual function highlights the performative role of language in both enabling and limiting institutional legitimacy, especially in contexts marked by contested heritage and asymmetrical cultural relations.The second level applies the positional model and the transformation threshold framework to investi-gate how satellite museums navigate structural dependencies and exercise agency within transnational governance systems. This analysis identifies recurrent dynamics of legitimacy, dependency, and negoti-ation, showing how some institutions consolidate relative autonomy while others remain trapped in hi-erarchical architectures of control. The framework enables the tracing of institutional movements across time, highlighting conditions under which museums gain or lose agency and revealing both resilient and fragile configurations of cultural power. By mapping these positional shifts, the analysis foregrounds the instability and contingency of institutional authority, offering insights into the political economy of global museum networks.By articulating these two analytical perspectives, the study offers a multi-scalar understanding of how satellite museums function as both discursive and structural agents. Rather than treating them as stat-ic entities or case-bound exceptions, the analysis demonstrates that their trajectories are relational, shaped by intersecting forces of geopolitics, urban policy, and epistemic governance. This approach moves beyond comparative typology towards a processual reading of the satellite museum as a contin-gent and dynamic infrastructure of symbolic power. As such, the article contributes to a broader recon-ceptualization of cultural institutions as fields of tension and negotiation, where legitimacy is not merely inherited but continuously produced, contested, and reshaped.The article concludes that satellite museums constitute an increasingly influential vector in the recon-figuration of international symbolic hierarchies, but their potential remains contingent on epistemic alignment, institutional reflexivity, and commitment to redistributive models of governance. While some satellites function as franchises of hegemonic discourse, others operate as laboratories of institutional rearticulation, capable of activating alternative alliances, epistemologies, and spatial imaginaries. The study contributes to the theory of international relations as a multilayered and contested arena in which museums act not merely as transmitters of national identity but as agents of paradiplomatic negotiation, epistemic struggle, and symbolic redistribution. By placing satellite museums at the intersection of criti-cal museology and international relations, the article offers an analytical framework capable of capturing the complexity, contradictions, and political stakes of contemporary cultural governance. This framework has implications not only for academic inquiry but also for policy design and institutional practice, es-pecially in contexts where cultural diplomacy intersects with urban regeneration, heritage disputes, and
