Science and technology internationalization and the emergence of peripheral techno-dreams: the Yachay project case

Abstract

On the basis of interviews, observations and archival analysis, this article explores the controversies surrounding the Yachay project case in Ecuador and unveils three ideological processes behind its conception and implementation. First, we show how the new elite in the government used this project to produce and reproduce a new power structure using a symbolic strategy based on propaganda and on an imaginary of techno-scientific modernization. Second, we unveil the material and symbolic reproduction of a cosmopolitan elite of international experts that profited from the Ecuadorian public funds in exchange for their name and prestige, thanks to a discourse based on cosmopolitanism, urgency, and voluntarism. Finally, we explain how the Yachay project has triggered the reconfiguration of the local symbolic sphere according to the new conditions of reproduction of the world system by reshaping the local imaginaries around technology and innovation. We conclude that Yachay, like other similar projects that have emerged at the same time in other parts of the world, is part of a global process of reconfiguration of the ideological and institutional conditions that accompany the deployment of the latest wave of technoeconomic transformations in the global system.

The intersections between infrastructures and expectations: repair and breakdown in Yachay, the city of knowledge in Ecuador

“…Similarly, the paper has tried to show how representing the process through which Yachay was generated as a simple importation or application of a foreign model (Chavez & Gaybor 2018;Fernández González, Cadenas, and Purcell 2018) neglects a series of constant reconfigurations rooted in specific actors' trajectories and contingent negotiations, which have been crucial in the history of the project. Instead, focusing on expectations can address the constant work required to sustain specific representations of pasts and futures, in the form of narratives, future-objects, infrastructures, and relations.…”

“…I hope this research, as well as Chavez and Gaybor's research(Chavez and Gaybor 2018), shows the dangers of over-generalizing specific investigative experiences and extracting from them universal conceptual truths. Such as the ones promoted by Fernández González et al in their article about Yachay in which they state that: "we consider that urban projects of this scope require denying or obliterating both citizen participation and scientific research on the planning and construction process of the new city"(Fernández González, Cadenas, and Purcell 2018, 343).…”

“…Here the argument pursues a different narrative that analyzes the very early negotiations and scaling up process of the project, which happened during the design of Yachay within the Ecuadorian government. In addition, I describe how elements of specific actors' pasts and envisioned futures were mobilized to inspire and be part of the design of the project; hence, illustrating other sources of inspiration for the design of Yachay different from the South Korean model highlighted by Chavez and Gaybor (2018) as Yachay's primary reference.…”

“…This is the case of the formulation of the 2010 LOES, which at the same time established how already existing universities would be evaluated and regulated, and those that failed the process would be closed, 10 as well as stating the future construction of the four "emblematic" universities legally. The investment of substantial public resources in the creation of these universities would become one of the sources of tension between the central government and the higher education institutions as many academic actors considered it a sign of contempt for the existing universities, their experience, and human resources (Chavez and Gaybor 2018;Villavicencio 2014). Many of these actors argued in favor of using those resources to improve the existing universities and the higher education system, but the LOES declared a wide-ranging evaluation for the whole university system, foreclosing in that way the possibility to invest that amount of resources in Universities that would have to be evaluated in the subsequent years.…”

“…20 The urban aspect of the project was strongly highlighted with the Korean influence, specially the line of urbanism related to knowledge cities and knowledge-based urban planning, which can be traced back to the 1990s and across a variety of regions in the world ranging from Australia to Rumania, but that is nowadays more associated with Asian urbanism and knowledge-economies (Elena 2015;Yigitcanlar, Metaxiotis, and Carrillo 2012;Yigitcanlar, Velibeyoglu, and Martinez-Fernandez 2008). Recently, this type of cooperation has been analyzed within the idea of "south-south cooperation," the internationalization of Korean and Chinese sociopolitical influence and the circulation of Asian urban models across Latin America and Africa (Chavez and Gaybor 2018;Noorloos and Leung 2017;Yoo 2012). In this sense, the Korean cooperation inserted the project in a much more ambitious scheme, with numerous international dynamics at stake, with an ever more wide-ranging expected potential impact.…”