Decoding community participation: standardization and control in a Mexico’s cold war-era development program

This study explores the Programa de Obras Rurales por Cooperación (PORC) and Programa de Alimentación Complementaria Rural (PACR) in Mexico from the 1960s to the 1980s, within the context of Cold War geopolitics and community development paradigms. The article examines how technical knowledge and state control, harnessed through standardization practices, rendered local needs legible to the State and international organizations, thereby limiting community agency. Using historical and critical methodologies, this paper interrogates the narrative of success attributed to these programs, revealing the complexities of community participation and the reduction of rural life to quantifiable metrics. The analysis reveals the dual nature of these initiatives as tools for development and social control, demonstrating the broader implications of such standardization practices for community autonomy and geopolitics of aid. This study contributes to critical development studies by problematizing the codification of participation and its implications for rendering community needs legible through standardization.