Cold Warriors and Technocrats: Experts and Expertise in the Latin American Countryside

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel examines the political stakes of “expert” knowledge in the Latin American countryside during the Cold War. The panelists discuss the work of international consultants - including engineers, social scientists, agronomists, foresters, and others - in the context of a changing rural sector and broader social and political questions. Using historical methods, each paper examines the relationship between traveling experts, national institutions, and local communities, as well as the multiple directions and scales of these exchanges. This panel is designed to coincide with Cold Warriors and Technocrats: Experts and Expertise in the Latin American City.

Sub Track

• History and Historiography

Session Organizer

• Timothy W Lorek, Yale University

Chair

• Rebecca A Tally, Cornell University

Individual Presentations

• Trees, Beans, and Bullets: Forestry, Development, and Counterinsurgency in Northern Guatemala, 1960-1970 - anthony w andersson, New York University

• South by Southwest: Agricultural Development Exchange between Puerto Rico and Colombia’s Cauca Valley, 1920-1960 - Timothy W Lorek, Yale University

• Rumors, Revolts, and Reses: Local Responses to Foot-and-Mouth Disease Eradication in Cold War Mexico - Thomas G Rath, University College London

• The Mountain of Death and the Selegua Gap: The United States, Highway Engineers, and the Early Cold War in Central America - Eric Rutkow, Yale University

Discussant

• Gabriela M Soto Laveaga, University of California/Santa Barbara