State, experts, and rural development in Colombia, 1930–50. A local genealogy of international community development

This article argues that the efforts made by the Colombian state to promote rural development, beginning in the 1930s, provided valuable knowledge, experiences, and methodologies that were fundamental for the global deployment of community development after World War II. This specific international development technique was based on small-scale, horizontal, and participatory strategies to raise the living standards of poor populations and was widely used by bilateral and multilateral technical assistance agencies during the 1950s and 1960s. The article first explores two pilot projects designed by local experts to jointly intervene in the health, agricultural practices, and social organization of rural communities through participatory and applied educational strategies. Then, the article follows the institutional trajectories (local and international) of some of these experts and their influence on two specific agencies for technical assistance in the fields of health, agriculture, and education in the early 1950s: the Institute of Inter-American Affairs and UNESCO. The community programs carried out by these agencies must then be seen as the result of multiple transnational trajectories of development. These trajectories, however, take seriously the historical agency of Latin American states and their experts.