In search of El Dorado: U.S. experts and the promise of development in the Guayana region of Venezuela

IF 1 1区历史学 Q1 HISTORY

History and Technology Pub Date : 2019-07-03 DOI:10.1080/07341512.2019.1694250

Fred Schulze

引用次数: 1

Abstract

ABSTRACT When urban planners from MIT and Harvard University began to design a new city in Venezuela in 1961, euphoria soon gave way to a skeptical appraisal of urban planning. Unrealistic ambitions, inadequate implementation, social tensions, and diverging interests by US American und Venezuelan experts complicated the building of Ciudad Guayana. The evolving city did not live up to initial expectations and remained a work in progress. Tracing the many voices involved including critics within the American team, helps understand the dynamics, challenges, and limitations of knowledge transfers in 1960s modernization programs. Scientific planning knowledge proved an unstable and less powerful commodity than Americans had expected. Problems on the ground took the gloss off the Western hegemonic scientific repertoire. They led to an appropriation of knowledge by Venezuelan experts who harnessed their US American counterparts to advance their own political aims.

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寻找黄金国:美国专家与委内瑞拉瓜亚那地区发展的希望

1961年，当麻省理工学院和哈佛大学的城市规划者开始在委内瑞拉设计一座新城市时，欣快感很快被对城市规划的怀疑态度所取代。不切实际的雄心、不充分的实施、社会紧张局势以及美国和委内瑞拉专家的利益分歧使瓜亚那城的建设复杂化。这个不断发展的城市没有达到最初的期望，仍然是一个正在进行的工作。追踪包括美国团队内部批评在内的许多声音，有助于理解20世纪60年代现代化项目中知识转移的动态、挑战和局限性。科学的规划知识被证明是一种不稳定的商品，没有美国人预期的那么强大。地面上的问题使西方的科学霸权黯然失色。它们导致委内瑞拉专家盗用知识，利用他们的美国同行来推进自己的政治目标。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

History and Technology HISTORY-

CiteScore

1.60

自引率

16.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： History and Technology serves as an international forum for research on technology in history. A guiding premise is that technology—as knowledge, practice, and material resource—has been a key site for constituting the human experience. In the modern era, it becomes central to our understanding of the making and transformation of societies and cultures, on a local or transnational scale. The journal welcomes historical contributions on any aspect of technology but encourages research that addresses this wider frame through commensurate analytic and critical approaches.