The multiple Teletones that inhabit Teletón: a chameleonic actor

Abstract

This paper is based on the analysis of the emergence and development of Telethon in different countries, with emphasis on Chile, Mexico, and the weight of its International Telethon Organization. In the case of Mexico, through its permanent metamorphosis, this politically, economically and symbolically chameleon-like actor has been able to walk through imprecise levels that allow it to reposition itself permanently through changing relationships with other positions in the field, modifying the discourses, representations and imaginaries that it manipulates and transforms according to "what is at stake in the field". It has gone from being an instance that presents in its campaigns and television shows the most pitiful vision of disability and has deals with governments through which it obtains donations and resources, to evaluate, together with others, the Mexican State before the Follow-up Committee on the fulfillment of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The same Committee that in its 2014 observations requested the Mexican State not to grant more state resources to Telethon, but which neither Telethon nor the government took into account since they recently signed an agreement by which Telethon receives federal budget to provide health and rehabilitation services.