Vicos As Cold War Strategy: Anthropology, Peasants and ‘Community Development’1
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Vicos as Cold War Strategy: Anthropology, Peasants and ‘Community Development’1 Eric B. Ross ABSTRACT: This article examines how anthropology’s emphasis on the traditional values of peasants reflected the general precepts of ‘modernization theory’, the dominant de- velopment discourse of the Cold War era. It explores how such ideas lent credibility to the U.S. strategy of ‘community development’ as a central part of its response to radical rural change. Special attention is paid to the Cornell-Peru Project at Vicos in the Peruvian highlands, which attained legendary status as a case of applied anthro- pology, but is here examined in relationship to the strategies of the U.S. power elite and Cold War government policies. KEYWORDS: modernization, applied anthropology, peasants, community development, Cold War Introduction Harris 1968), cannot therefore be seen as a log- ical development of anthropology’s theoretical Despite the long standing role of peasant soci- history. On the contrary, it was a product of the eties in human economic and political develop- discipline’s place in the historical development ment, peasants themselves did not become an of Western political economy and specifically explicit subject of modern anthropological study of the impact of the Cold War on the social sci- until just after the Second World War (Foster ences (see Nader 1997; Price 2004). As such, the 1967: 4). Thus, when Ralph Linton had pub- growing interest in peasants that characterized lished The Study of Man in 1936, there was no anthropology—and that led to such famous proj- mention of peasants in the index. Twelve years ects as the Cornell-Peru Project at the Andean later, George Foster, then Director of the Smith- hacienda community of Vicos, to be discussed sonian’s Institute of Social Anthropology and below—was associated, openly or implicitly, author of a classic monograph on the Mexican with ‘modernization theory’, an influential body community of Tzintzuntzan (Foster 1948), still of writing through which Western academics wrote of rural Mexico’s ‘folk economy’, (Foster and policy-makers described certain goals as 1948) and, through the early 1950s, the few ar- desirable for the developing world (cf. Latham ticles on peasants that appeared in anthropo- 2000), which was largely dominated by peasant logical journals still generally referred to them communities. largely in terms of ‘folk culture’ (Lewis 1955: However, writing on modernization was also 145). a part of the West’s strategic and ideological re- The timing of the new post-war focus on sponse to a post-war world of insurgent peasan- peasants, which is scarcely accounted for in any tries whose aspirations filled it with profound major work on anthropological theory (e.g., anxiety (Ross 1998b, Cumings 1998). These aspi- Anthropology in Action, Volume 12, Issue 3 (2005): 21–33 © Berghahn Books and the Association for Anthropology in Action AiA | Eric B. Ross rations—and Western apprehensions—had been of the most influential determinants of U.S. growing for decades. Challenges to U.S. and global strategic thinking,3 the CIA, on the one European colonialism had been evident prior hand, and the Ford Foundation, on the other. to the Second World War and had even contin- As a place whose ‘ultimate aim’, according to ued during it. It was not surprising, therefore, its Deputy Director, economist Walt Rostow, that the West’s planning for the post-war era was ‘the production of an alternative to Marx- had often focused less on the immediate task ism’ (Rosen 1985: 27–29), CENIS became a ma- of how to defeat Nazi Germany than on how, jor source of the literature on the psychology of after that eventual defeat, to contain the Soviet development, through the work of people such Union and minimize its growing influence in as Daniel Lerner, Lucien Pye and Everett Ha- the Third World. Thus, as early as 1941, even gen, whose Weberian conceptualizations of the before entering the war, the U.S. had joined the so-called modernization process emphasized U.K. in planning for the long-term financial the vital role of groups with ‘a rationalist and stability of the world capitalist economy. By positivist spirit’, whose values were entrepre- the summer of 1944, the two allies had forged neurial (Lerner 1958: 45).4 These did not in- their chief institutional mechanisms to achieve clude peasants. Far from it, modernization was this at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. regarded as virtually synonymous with vigor- The ultimate importance of the so-called ous participation in the capitalist world market Bretton Woods institutions—the IMF and the economy, while the conflicts and disruption World Bank—reflected the fact that, in contrast which often accompanied it and in which peas- to the pre-war years, the threat posed by the ants were widely involved were, in the CENIS socialist model of development then had to be view, less the product of inequalities than of seen in terms of its potential attractiveness to the way that new ideas were said to clash with anti-colonialist movements throughout Africa the ‘stabilizing elements in traditional society’ and Asia. From this point of view, the triumph (Millikan and Blackmer 1961: 16).5 The main of the Chinese communists in 1949 fuelled a challenge, as Rostow, a hawkish White House sense of urgency that, in turn, brought mod- advisor during the Vietnam War years, would ernization theory to the fore in the following observe in a talk to the graduating class of the decades. That theory not only helped to define Counter Guerrilla Course at Fort Bragg, North the future of the developing world within the Carolina, was not to bring justice to the coun- market framework of the West, but also re- tryside, but for the West to use the moderniza- flected the latter’s sense of foreboding, which tion process to its own advantage, while cutting was so well expressed by former U.S. Secretary off the opportunities it offered to peasant or of Defense and ex-World Bank president Robert communist insurgency (Latham 2000: 167– McNamara, when he referred to a ‘sweeping 168). Hence, many of his CENIS colleagues surge of development … [that] turned tradi- offered their expertise to government agencies tionally listless areas of the world into seething engaged in counter-insurgency operations. caldrons of change’ (cited in Shafer 1988: 80). Such uncontrolled development—closely asso- ciated with the conviction that the chief source Problematizing Peasants of unstable and unpredictable change was Mal- thusian pressures—was widely regarded as an Before the Second World War was over, peas- invitation to communist influence.2 ants were already regarded as the problem at Hence, the academic focus of modernization the heart of most Third World insurgency. One writing, the Center for International Studies possible way to deal with this was to modify in- (CENIS) at MIT, was closely connected to two digenous cultural values—a goal that beckoned 22 | Vicos as Cold War Strategy | AiA anthropology, at a point when it was transform- experience of many professional observers, not ing itself into a modern professional discipline. least, the UN Economic Commission for Latin This was partly reflected in the reorganization America (UNECLA 1968) and writers such as of the American Anthropological Association Erich Jacoby (1949) and Daniel Thorner (Thorner (AAA) in the late 1940s, when the promise of and Thorner 1962), who firmly regarded land government and foundation funding—much as the salient issue at the heart of rural develop- of it related to the priorities of the Cold War— ment.6 Erasmus’s values, however, were those drove this process (Price 2004: 4–6). But, it also of a time when the Western power elite held that took place against the background of McCar- developing countries (and the West) would be thyism, when the AAA was under great pres- far better off, if they could only be refashioned sure, as one of its most eminent members, Julian in the image of the United States, and when it Steward, observed, to dissociate itself from any was being said in Washington by policy-makers, hint that it was anything other than a purely whose feet had never touched peasant ground, scientific organization without political orien- that ‘The ideal of every sincere agrarian re- tation (Steward 1954). At such a time, many former…is to produce a situation something anthropologists were not only reluctant to be like that in the United States, where on a rela- seen to voice criticisms of the West’s stance dur- tively small farm a family cannot only live but ing the Cold War, but often particularly eager live in comfort’ (Berle 1962: 55).7 The main prob- to benefit professionally by demonstrating how lem, in Erasmus’s view, was only for the U.S. anthropological research and analysis could to ‘make sure that we are providing sufficient contribute to the shaping and implementation incentive for those best qualified to help win of Western policy, especially in regard to the the race for free society’ against what he called ‘modernization’ of peasant society. ‘coercive society’ (Erasmus 1961: 331). The fact One early indication of this was the creation that the number of small U.S. farms (particu- of the Society for Applied Anthropology in larly those owned by Afro-Americans) had been 1941. Over the next twenty years, the view of in steady decline through most of the twenti- many of the most renowned practitioners in eth century (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1973: this subfield came to reflect dominant Wash- 59; Cummins 2006; Flanagan and Inoyue 2006) ington development policy, with its antipathy was obviously beside the point. to radical social and economic change.