2005 SUMMER RESEARCH REPORT

Entire Summer 2005 Article

Field Research Report
Megan Morrissey

Introduction
My research on the history of Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela was carried out over a period of five weeks in July and August. First, I spent four days in the archives of the Joint Center for Urban Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University (now housed at MIT), the institution responsible for supplying urban planning advice to Ciudad Guayana's local development agency. Second, I conducted field research in Ciudad Guayana, based around extensive, unstructured interviews with different sectors of the population there. As a result of this work, I am able to conclude that Ciudad Guayana, a site of interaction between national and international economic interests and a product of foreign and local urban planning initiatives, has been defined by inequality since its creation in the early 1960s. In the present context of the Chavez administration, as many of the bases of the social and economic inequalities around which Ciudad Guayana has traditionally been organized are threatened, the city is facing an identity crisis. Related middle- and upper-class anxieties are a product of relatively minor substantive changes in the lives of Ciudad Guayana's poor majority.

Part one: MIT archives
The archives of the Guayana Project of the Joint Center for Urban Studies of MIT and Harvard had not been accessed in at least a decade. By studying them, I gained a clearer understanding of what Ciudad Guayana was like when the Boston-based urban planners were hired in 1961. Particularly important to my investigation were the memos written by Dr. Lisa Peattie, an anthropologist who lived on site in Ciudad Guayana (the only Joint Center staff member to do so) as the planning progressed.

The project involved an often uneasy collaboration between the Joint Center and the local Venezuelan development agency, the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana (CVG). The Joint Center sought to plan an ideal city that would introduce modern development into the Venezuelan interior, and also, as an academic institution, it wished to test certain theories of development. What became clear as I read the staff memos and working papers, was that the project suffered from poor organization and a limited understanding of the local setting. Joint Center and CVG efforts were disjointed from the start, and most of the planning recommendations made by the former were never implemented.

Part two: Ciudad Guayana
In Ciudad Guayana, I spent about one week examining the records of the Venezuelan development agency that was the local counterpart of the Joint Center and by far the more enduring partner. Despite rumors to the contrary that resulted in a popular outcry, the CVG continues to be an integral part of the administrative structure of Ciudad Guayana. The CVG, developed to guide the initial development of the city, never transferred its administrative functions to the elected city officials, who exist alongside and independent from the CVG.

CVG records of the urban planning project make no mention of the Joint Center work carried out on contracts between 1961 and 1965, though it does demonstrate the theoretical influence of the hired academics. In particular, the notion of "regional development" organized around urban, industrial "growth poles" is prominent in the CVG literature. In the 1970s, the CVG intended to carry out a development project in the Delta region of Venezuela based on the experiences in Ciudad Guayana, though this was never completed.

My fieldwork in Ciudad Guayana consisted of about 50 interviews with people I met while in the city - at the development agency and cultural organizations, and through a generous couple with ties to the local aluminum industry who hosted me at their home. In my effort to understand the origins of inequality in Ciudad Guayana, I also spoke with residents of the city who were presently employed in the local industries, and others who had been employed by U.S. Steel when it began exporting minerals from the area in the early 1950s.

These interviews, with elderly and mostly foreign-born individuals, were some of the most fruitful. They recalled vividly the American encampments that preceded nearly all other development in what is not a city of about one million people. The ex-employees of U.S. Steel idealized the era of the American enclaves, emphasizing the fact that these were the nicest parts of the then small city of Puerto Ordaz. The company was the benevolent steward of its 3 camps, and residents had only to look across to the ramshackle "ranchos" of El Castillito to perceive their privilege. The homes in the camps were sold off when the steel industry was nationalized in the mid-1970s, but are still well preserved today. As it did in the 1950s, Camp C still houses the economic elite of Ciudad Guayana.

Few residents of Ciudad Guayana are aware that urban planners from Boston were involved in the development of the city, though all point to the fact that it has changed enormously, even in recent years. The middle-aged residents I interviewed emphasized that Ciudad Guayana has been transformed from a rural backwater into an important, even cosmopolitan city. The fact that Ciudad Guayana was planned is a point of local pride, and most people speak favorably about the results, though they feel that more work is needed.

There is still a clear division between the planned and unplanned parts of the city. In general, the planning took place on the Western side of the bisecting Caroní River, and the more populous Eastern areas of the city developed almost independently of the state investments. Land-grabs, or "invasions," are a major contemporary concern, and they have been since Ciudad Guayana's inception, because the planning period involved a building freeze, which coincided with large amounts if in-migration from abroad and other parts of Venezuela.

Informal settlements are still emerging on both sides of the river, and in stark contrast to the traditional "urbanizations." These low income communities are associated with a rise in crime. At this point in my research, it is not clear whether the increased crime is real or perceived, though most people I spoke to had had some experience of crime. The informal economy is also a visible part of Ciudad Guayana at present, and my middle-class informants associated this and the land "invasions" with what they see as Chavez's permissive policies toward the poor.

In large part because of patterns in foreign economic and demographic influences, inequalities have always been apparent in Ciudad Guayana. Though they are likely more exaggerated than before - and this theory still needs testing - I found that the increasing visibility and political empowerment of the poor have begun to inspire a certain anxiety in those who have traditionally controlled most of Ciudad Guayana's resources. Municipal elections took place during my visit (on August 6th), and voting was clearly taking place along class lines - the middle- and upper-classes tended not to vote at all. However, I do not predict a dramatic shift in the balance of power in the now significantly-sized Ciudad Guayana. Instead, I suspect that Ciudad Guayana's class issues reflect larger trends in Venezuelan society.

Conclusion
My summer research deepened my understanding of Ciudad Guayana's history, and, accordingly, its place in national and trans-national processes. I was not surprised to find that Ciudad Guayana was, and still is, an unequal place. Instead, my fieldwork afforded me an awareness of the complex origins and articulations of the inequalities that I have come to see as characteristic of Ciudad Guayana.