Faces of the tropics: Facial recognition, identity and refusal in Mexico

Abstract

This paper investigates ‘AI refusal’ by analysing how colonial and racialised logics inform the surveillance and representation of Mexicans through facial recognition technologies. Blending conventional academic analysis with a fictional vignette and a visual triptych, the paper offers a creative-critical approach to resistance. The vignette evokes the emotional and embodied impacts of surveillance, while the triptych employs visual metaphors to challenge reductive representations and affirm selfhood across the lifespan. Together, these methods provide cultural geographers with tools to examine the affective, symbolic and material dimensions of surveillance, resistance and collective memory.