Article ID: CBB767188252

In Search of El Dorado: U.S. Experts and the Promise of Development in the Guayana Region of Venezuela (2019)

unapi

Schulze, Frederik (Author)


History and Technology
Volume: 35
Issue: 3
Pages: 338-363


Publication Date: 2019
Edition Details: Special Issue: Empires of Knowledge
Language: English

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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Article Axel Jansen; John Krige; Jessica Wang (2019) Empires of Knowledge: Introduction. History and Technology (pp. 195-202). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB767188252/

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Authors & Contributors
Amir, Sulfikar
Biggs, David
Buckley, Eve E.
Graham, Wade
Hart, Jennifer
Hartmann, Heinrich
Journals
East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
History and Technology
Technology and Culture
Comparative Technology Transfer and Society
Diplomatic History
Science, Technology, and Human Values
Publishers
University of Minnesota
University of California, Berkeley
West Virginia University
Brill
Campus Verlag
Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group
Concepts
Economic development
Expertise
Urban planning
Technology transfer
Modernization
Water resource management
People
Rockefeller, Nelson Aldrich
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, late
21st century
19th century
20th century, early
Places
United States
Africa
Great Britain
Brazil
India
California (U.S.)
Institutions
World Bank
Cornell University
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