XVII Congress of the Brazilian Studies Association

Aided Self-Help Housing and the Latin American City: The Contentious Relations between CEPAL and Alliance for Progress in Northeast Brazil during the Cold War

• In Event: Cold War U.S.-Brazil interactions: self-help diplomacy, the seeds of neoliberalism, and foreign interference resistance

Abstract

Analyzing local, national and transnational networks of funding, experts and knowledge in the Americas, the present article examines the relation between foreign policy, economics, and aided self-help housing in Northeast Brazil in light of mid-20th century efforts of urbanization. Relying on sources such as personal letters exchanged, public and private reports, interviews, and newspapers, I unveil the direct influence of international actors such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) and the Alliance for Progress/U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in affordable housing construction in Latin America. Discussing different ideas of developmentalism and modernization, I argue that, more than providing housing to an emerging working class, think tanks like CEPAL and USAID used aided self-help public housing provision as a tool to guide political, economic, social and cultural changes in Brazil and Latin America. Moreover, I argue that beyond social movements demands for a roof, local and national authorities and elites used aided self-help housing in order to dispute hearts and minds of their local voters and international actors interested in providing funding and expertise for their endeavors.

Author

• Yuri Gama, University of Massachusetts Amherst