Status symbols from the Global South: Chile’s iceberg in Expo Seville ’92

Status symbols have become a central focus in the second wave of research on international status. This article examines Chile’s transportation and display of a several-ton Antarctic iceberg at Expo ’92 in Seville as a strategic attempt to regain international standing after the Pinochet dictatorship. Drawing on archival and media sources, we show that the iceberg was designed to secure European recognition of Chile as a modern, civilized country while distancing it from stereotypical images of Latin America. Yet, rather than consolidating prestige, the display generated backlash at home and abroad. This resistance did not arise primarily from rationalistic concerns over cost, corruption, or deference—as identified in existing status-backlash literature—but from perceptions of identity misrepresentation : the sense that the iceberg projected an inauthentic or sanitized version of Chilean identity. The article advances status research in three ways. First, it introduces identity misrepresentation as a fourth mode of critique against status symbols. Second, it shows how enduring civilizational hierarchies shape status aspirations among smaller states in the Global South. Third, it highlights international exhibitions as an underexamined arena where states perform, contest, and negotiate status before multiple audiences.