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Abstract
This paper describes and analyzes the relationship between engineers' identity and the construction of the Mexico from Independence to the present. It covers the main periods of political change in Mexican history to highlight how engineers' identities are (re)shaped when the relationship between the State and its population changes. It focuses on the development of engineering education institutions as sites of identity formation where engineers' identities acquire new meanings when the relationship between State, engineers and population is redefined. It concludes with a brief analysis of how engineers' identities today are coping with the challenges of globalization and privatization.
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges Gerardo Ferrando, Director of the Faculty of Engineering at UNAM, and Fernando Ocampo, President of the Mexican Accreditation Council for Engineering Education (CACEI), for their unconditional support during the research for this paper in Mexico and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) grant (DUE‐0230992) for funding this project.
Notes
[1] See: Brown, ‘Design Plans’; Hård and Knie, ‘The Grammar of Technology’; Kranakis, Constructing a Bridge; and Meiksins and Smith, Engineering Labour.
[2] See, for example, Herb and Kaplan, Nested Identities, and the journal Nations and Nationalism.
[3] Brianta, ‘Education and Training’; Nikolow, ‘A. F. W. Crome's Measurements’.
[4] Pons, ‘Ingenieros en la Independencia’.
[5] Diaz y De Ovando, Los veneros, 71. This is a compilation of primary documents from the archives of the Real Seminario, the Colegio Nacional, and the Escuela Nacional, located at the Palacio de Mineria in Mexico City.
[6] Ibid., 76, 82
[7] Anderson, Imagined Communities.
[8] Lucena, ‘Crear y Servir la Patria’.
[9] In 1822, the Mexican congress approved to the creation of the Colegio Militar to train military engineers. See Sanchez Lamego, El Colegio Militar.
[10] Rebert, La Gran Linea.
[11] Document 68 quoted in Diaz y De Ovando, Los veneros, 1157.
[12] Anderson, Imagined Communities.
[13] Duncan, ‘Embracing a Suitable Past’, 257.
[14] Diaz y De Ovando, Los veneros, 2310.
[15] Ibid., 2562.
[16] Ibid., 2417.
[17] Haber, Industry and Underdevelopment, 62.
[18] When Diaz took power in 1876 there were only 640 km of railroad, mostly built by British companies. In 1898 this number had grown to 12,081 km.
[19] Bazant, Historia de la educacion, 221.
[20] Quoted in ibid., 22.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid., 246.
[23] Ibid., 193.
[24] Quoted in ibid., 169.
[25] Vaughnan, The State, Education, 95.
[26] See Palafox, La ESIME, and Leon, El Instituto Politecnico Nacional.
[27] Palafox, La ESIME, 139.
[28] Quintanilla and Vaughan, Escuela y sociedad, 53.
[29] Quoted in Palafox, La ESIME, 159.
[30] Ibid., 73.
[31] Thirty escuelas were integrated under the IPN, five of them granting higher education degrees, including the EIME. By 1939, IPN was organized in four levels (pre‐vocational, vocational, sub‐profesional, and professional), serving 21,000 students (60% male, 40% female), 10% of whom were at the professional level.
[32] Quoted in Leon, El Instituto Politecnico Nacional, 33.
[33] See reformed curriculum in Moles et al., La ensenanza, 370.
[34] Ibid., 36.
[35] Gonzalez Mejia, En la ESIME.
[36] Quoted in Cleaves, Professions and the State, 23.
[37] Quoted in Moles et al., La ensenanza, 20–21.
[38] Garcia Sanchez, Evolucion Historico Social.
[39] Moles et al., La ensenanza.
[40] Ibid., 68.
[41] Saragoza, The Monterrey Elite.
[42] The Sistema Nacional de Tecnologicos that President Aleman created with six technological institutes offering a multiplicity of engineering programs throughout Mexico has grown to more than 200 Tecnologicos organized under an office of technical higher education at the Secretaria de Educacion Publica (SEP). There are also a significant number of regional autonomous (e.g. Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi) and private universities (e.g. Universidad de las Americas in Puebla, Iberoamericana) that also offer engineering programs. The recent emergence of these engineering programs, relative to the long history of the Mexican nation‐state, calls for a separate analysis later on.
[43] Daniel Diaz, ‘Interview with Juan Lucena’, Mexico City, May 2004.
[44] Sociedad de Ex‐alumnos, ‘Prospectiva de la Formacion del Ingeniero’.
[45] Diaz, ‘Interview with Juan Lucena’.
[46] Ibid.
[47] Faustino Perez, ‘Interview with Juan Lucena’, Golden, Colorado, September 2006.
[48] It is significant that ITESM is the only Mexican and Latin American university participating in the GE3.
[49] Ana Iglesias, ‘Interview with Juan Lucena’, October 2004.