South America’s Fertile but Different World

Abstract

This chapter studies the type of community development programs and projects in South America before and after the arrival of the Peace Corps in the 1960s. This discussion complicates the unidirectional North-South narratives around development and sheds light on the challenges that the Peace Corps volunteers encountered. The young Americans often confronted unexpected contexts in which the ideological visions and partisan politics, as well as the changing political scenarios during the decade, compelled them to adapt and negotiate their own social intervention paradigms. To this end, the chapter discusses experiences in Chile, Colombia, and Peru. It also provides a succinct view of programs promoted by the Catholic Church in South America. These programs organized by the church and other actors working from within South American did not run parallel to the Peace Corps’ efforts. On the contrary, volunteers collaborated precisely in these local programs and dialogued with the plans, paradigms, and local visions of community development.