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

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel examines the political stakes of “expert” knowledge in Latin American cities during the Cold War. Using historical methods, we discuss the work of engineers, architects, urban planners, psychiatrists, and educational consultants in the context of rapid postwar urbanization and Cold War ideological struggles. Taken together, our papers examine why national leaders turned to foreign ideas and experts and argue that the interaction between international and local varied depending on the context, scale, and nature of the project. This panel is designed to coincide with “Cold Warriors and Technocrats: Experts and Expertise in the Latin American Countryside.”

Sub Track

• History and Historiography

Chair

• Julio E Moreno, University of San Francisco

Individual Presentations

• Mexico City’s Mid-Century Housing Crisis: Conceptualizations of Urban Poverty for a Shifting City - Emilio de Antunano, University of Chicago

• Counterrevolutionary Consultations: The Politics of Private Education in Cold War Mexico - Taylor H Jardno, Yale University

• Engine of Change: The Santiago Metro and Allende's Chile - Andra B Chastain, Yale University

• More like the West: The Last Military Dictatorship, Urban Reforms, and Professional Protest in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1976-1983) - Jennifer T Hoyt, Berry College

• Cold War Violence and Psychoanalysis in Buenos Aires - Marco A Ramos, Yale University

Discussant

• Eden Medina, Indiana University