Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth-Century Brazil

FAIN: FT-62004-14

Eve E. Buckley
University of Delaware (Newark, DE 19711-3651)

"Transforming Brazil's Desert" examines a cohort of Latin American intellectuals and bureaucrats who hoped to mitigate poverty without provoking social rupture. It focuses on engineers and others who staffed Brazil's drought works agency from 1909-1975. These scientifically trained men worked on the front lines of poverty alleviation, building dams and other infrastructure in a region plagued by recurring drought and consequent famine. As proponents of rationally guided transformation, they were critical of landowning elites but often frustrated by landless farmers' disinterest in adopting technologies and work regimes that could increase their productivity. By examining the archival records of Brazil's drought works agencies, Transforming Brazil's Desert illuminates why various branches of applied science came to be viewed as essential for regional transformation at different times, and why technocratic development efforts of this kind often failed to achieve their ambitious goals.

Associated Products

Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth-Century Brazil (Book)
Title: Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth-Century Brazil
Author: Eve E. Buckley
Abstract: This study of twentieth-century Brazil examines the nation’s hard social realities through the history of science, focusing on the use of technology and engineering as vexed instruments of reform and economic development. Nowhere was the tension between technocratic optimism and entrenched inequality more evident than in the drought-ridden Northeast sertão, plagued by chronic poverty, recurrent famine, and mass migrations. Buckley reveals how the physicians, engineers, agronomists, and mid-level technocrats working for federal agencies to combat drought were pressured by politicians to seek out a technological magic bullet that would both end poverty and obviate the need for land redistribution to redress long-standing injustices. Scientists planned and oversaw huge projects including dam construction, irrigation for small farmers, and public health initiatives. They were, Buckley shows, sincerely determined to solve the drought crisis and improve the lot of poor people in the sertão. Over time, however, they came to the frustrating realization that, despite technology’s tantalizing promise of an apolitical means to end poverty, political collisions among competing stakeholders were inevitable. Buckley’s revelations about technocratic hubris, the unexpected consequences of environmental engineering, and constraints on scientists as agents of social change resonate with today’s hopes that science and technology can solve society’s most pressing dilemmas, including climate change.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469634302/technocrats-and-the-politics-of-drought-and-development-in-twentieth-century-brazil/
Primary URL Description: Publisher's website (UNC Press)
Access Model: Purchase
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-1-4696-343
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Prizes

Humanities Book Prize
Date: 6/1/2018
Organization: Latin American Studies Association, Brazil Section

Warren Dean Memorial Prize
Date: 6/1/2018
Organization: Conference on Latin American History
Abstract: Honorable Mention

Brazil’s Mid-twentieth-century ‘Techno-class’ and the Search for Moderate Reform (Article)
Title: Brazil’s Mid-twentieth-century ‘Techno-class’ and the Search for Moderate Reform
Author: Eve E. Buckley
Abstract: Special Issue: Technology in Latin American History Edited by David Pretel (Colegio de Mexico, Mexico) and Helge Wendt (Max Plank Institute for the History of Science, Germany)
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/history-of-technology-volume-34-9781350085619/
Primary URL Description: Bloomsbury Press page
Access Model: Subscription or purchase
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: History of Technology v. 34 special issue
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Tecnocratas e a Política de Seca e Desenvolvimento no Brasil do Século XX (Book)
Title: Tecnocratas e a Política de Seca e Desenvolvimento no Brasil do Século XX
Author: Eve E. Buckley
Abstract: Este livro “examina a ciência e a tecnologia como instrumentos problemáticos de reforma social em uma região empobrecida da América Latina. Investiga os tecnocratas brasileiros do século XX que se viam como um meio-termo entre o conservadorismo reacionário das elites latifundiárias e os impulsos revolucionários dos reformadores de esquerda. No centro deste estudo, estão a imprevisibilidade do clima e os riscos que ela impõe a paisagens nas quais a pobreza está enraizada. Este é um tópico com ressonância crescente, já que comunidades em todo o mundo têm enfrentado flutuações extremas nos padrões climáticos. Em última análise, este livro pergunta até que ponto a especialidade científica pode resolver problemas sociais urgentes – sobretudo as desigualdades gritantes no que diz respeito à riqueza e à segurança. É destacada, assim, a limitação dos tecnocratas como agentes de mudança social”.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: http://https://loja.editoraunicamp.com.br/historia/tecnocratas-e-a-politica-de-seca-e-desenvolvimento-no-brasil-do-seculo-xx-633/p
Primary URL Description: From the publisher, Editora Unicamp (Campinas -SP, Brasil)
Access Model: purchase
Publisher: Editora Unicamp
Type: Translation
ISBN: 9788526815247
Translator: Cynthia Costa
Copy sent to NEH?: No

Drought and Public Policy in Northeast Brazil (Article)
Title: Drought and Public Policy in Northeast Brazil
Author: Eve E. Buckley
Abstract: The semi-arid interior of Brazil’s northeast region, known as the sertão, has long been subject to droughts. These can devastate the agricultural and ranching economy and cause serious hardship for the area’s inhabitants, particularly those who labor on farms and ranches belonging to the landowning elite. A prolonged drought in the late 1870s led the Brazilian government to begin soliciting advice from engineers about how to redress the periodic crisis. In 1909 the federal government established a permanent federal agency, the Inspectorate for Works to Combat Drought, to undertake reservoir construction throughout the sertão along with other measures that would alleviate future droughts. In subsequent decades the activities of the drought agency expanded to include constructing irrigation networks around reservoirs and establishing agricultural experiment stations to teach sertanejo farmers improved methods of farming in semi-arid conditions. Although powerful landowners lobbied for federal aid to construct reservoirs, which helped to sustain their own cattle herds through drought years, they were often opposed to initiatives like the establishment of irrigated smallholder colonies around reservoirs, which threatened to alter the social order in the sertão. Support for the federal drought agency’s work waxed and waned during the 20th century under different presidential administrations. Often it would rise in response to a period of damaging drought, then diminish once the crisis abated. Droughts have affected the sertão at irregular intervals since at least the colonial era. They vary in temporal duration and geographic expanse. Their impact on human populations depends on how the area of reduced rainfall overlaps with human settlement patterns and land use....
Year: 2020
Primary URL: http://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.834
Primary URL Description: Article entry in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, online
Access Model: online by subscription
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History
Publisher: Oxford University Press

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