The City as a Modernizing Paradigm: Colombia in the First Decades of the Twentieth Century

• Autores: Martha Cecilia Herrera Cortés
• Localización: Paedagogica Historica: International journal of the history of education, ISSN 0030-9230, Vol. 39, Nº. 1-2, 2003 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Urbanisation and education: the city as a light and beacon?), págs. 65-74
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In Colombia, the first decades of the twentieth century brought about conditions that allowed a greater dynamism in the modernization/modernity process. Coffee was stabilized as an export product giving way to steady bonds with the international market. Manufacture industries were created, some cities started to grow, and, at the same time, infrastructure and roads were improved. The elite made efforts to come together in the context of transformations that gave place to new poles of regional power, displacing, in the process, the old military "caudillos" (commanders), and bringing up a civil class representing a new liberal bourgeoisie. New cultural models started circulating along with scientific and social theories that provided new elements to interpret society. These conditions made possible for the elite the birth of images in which the conformation of the country to modern societies is thought of with great enthusiasm and faith in progress and civilization, and in which the city takes a strategic place. Nonetheless, this imagery is confronted with situations questioning the images of harmony and uninterrupted growth. The expansion processes of the cities and the social tensions created in the countryside attract masses of immigrants searching for work in the infrastructure enterprises the state has undertaken, and in the new jobs provided by the city. All of this gives way to an unequal appropriation of urban spaces; also, the consumption uses and habits of the population hinder the creation of an internal market. At the same time, productive processes and the rhythm of the city require new notions about the way time and space must be handled. This situation forces the state to design new strategies for the population directed to regulate their behavior and customs according to the rhythm of industrial societies. At the same time, it promotes the idea that this control over social and personal life is a part of the general purposes of a major unity called the nation. Thus, a good part of the ideology promoted in this period supports the idea that modernity is associated to urban life, and therefore, to the representation and aesthetic belonging to the city. In this way, educational reforms and population governing strategies are based on the paradigm of Western societies, and solidified in city images not only regarding social organization, but also the modeling of habits, customs, and the way of handling the body, among other aspects. Through the study of the documentary sources of this period, it is possible to establish the different representations of the city; it is shown as the development pole towards which the country should tend, as a place in which customs and traditions dissolve, or as an environment allowing the circulation of ideas that might question the social order or expand personal search and horizons. Although a major part of the population is still rural, the image of the "national" moves to the city, making urban life the modernizing paradigm par excellence