"Técnicos, Técnicos!": A Social History of Mexican Hydraulic Engineers and Agronomists as Intermediaries among State, Society, and Nature

This paper provides a brief survey history of Mexican técnicos—primarily hydrauilc engineers and agronomists—from Independence to  the late 20th century. Drawing on extensive primary and secondary  research, including in the history and sociology of science and  technology as well as technocrats, it argues that técnicos were key   actors in Mexico's modern state formation as intermediaries among the  state, society and nature. While committed developmentalists who  regarded nature primarily as a source of raw materials for agriculture and industry, the paper shows that in the key case of agrarian reform  from the 1940s to 1970s, in the process of acquiring knowledge and  understanding of natural processes, técnicos made confidential and candid scientific assessments of the potential long term social and  ecological harm of certain hydraulic development projects. These  assessments contradicted their public advocacy of these projects, and  in certain cases, ignoring those assessments made them wealthy  businessmen. How and why this occurred, and with what lessons for the  more "environmentally conscious" present, is the central problematic  of the paper.