Article ID: CBB876413002

Migrant Flows: Hydraulic Infrastructure, Agricultural Industrialization, and Environmental Change in Western Mexico, 1940–64 (April 2021)

unapi

This article explores the relationship between the growth of irrigation works, environmental change, and rural migration in western Mexico from 1940 to 1964. It begins by analyzing how Mexico’s expansion of hydraulic infrastructure facilitated the transfer of industrial agricultural technology through the US-based Rockefeller Foundation. US-sponsored technical assistance programs privileged irrigation- and input-intensive production, undermining traditional Mexican land tenure and agriculture regimes while industrializing and privatizing natural resources. These processes altered rural livelihoods and landscapes in western Mexico, intensifying migratory flows already amplified by the Bracero Program. By examining the origins of western Mexico’s deeply rooted culture of migration through an environmental and technical lens, this article reframes conventional socioeconomic and political understandings of Mexican migrancy, revealing the essential roles of the natural and built environments in the growth of a mass phenomenon that dominates US-Mexican relations today.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB876413002/

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Authors & Contributors
Ali Erken
Bonan, Giacomo
Gamboa, Erasmo
Hultgren, John
Daniel Rothenburg
Obertreis, Julia
Concepts
Agriculture
Environmental history
Emigration; immigration
Drainage; irrigation
Environment
Landscape; landscapes
Time Periods
20th century
19th century
Ancient
21st century
18th century
Places
Mexico
United States
Peru
Europe
Türkmenistan
Russian Empire
Institutions
Rockefeller Foundation
Hacettepe Üniversitesi
Ankara Yüksek Ziraat Enstitüsü
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