Developing International Development: American Technological Transfer Programs in Nepal 1952-1980

Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester MA

Investigators

Abstract

In many parts of the world, America's influence has been felt through technological programs designed to modernize health, agriculture, and family structure, and to protect nature. Using a combination of archival and ethnographic methods, Thomas Robertson will write a social, economic, and political history of the environmental changes introduced by American technology transfer programs in Nepal by focusing on four strategically selected case studies from the 1950s to the 1980s: the Rapti Valley Development Project (1950s), the Malaria Eradication Project (1960s), U.S. Agricultural Development and Land Reform Programs (1960s), and U.S. Population Control, Natural Resource, and National Park Programs (1960s-1980s). These four Cold War-era programs, and the ideas of nature and technology wrapped within them, placed Nepal on the frontlines of economic competition with the Soviet Union and China in rural Asia and also reshaped the contours of Nepal?s national and local life. Together, the programs became the face of 'progress' and 'modern technology' at a time when Nepalis, on both the national and local levels, were just beginning to invent what modernity would mean for them. In this book-length project, Robertson will explore both the environmental and economic transformations that came with these technological projects. This will be a history that is multi-perspectival. Robertson will uncover the views of American strategists, American development workers, Nepali planners, and Nepali villagers, especially those often overlooked: ethnic minorities, religious minorities, 'lower' castes, and women. At a time when international development has taken on new urgency because of Iraq and Afghanistan, assessing the impact of American technological transfer programs in earlier periods is more important than ever.