Articles about "Isthmus of Tehuantepec"

Realidades socioculturales

Projecting the Promise: Film and Railroads in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec

  • Gabriela Zamorano Villarreal

This article analyzes a selection of film and audiovisual records documenting two different moments in the history of the Tehuantepec Isthmus Railroad. The materials analyzed include a film on the inauguration of the route by Porfirio Díaz in 1907 and official videos recently produced to promote this work. From perspectives shared in film and infrastructure studies around notions of excess, contingency and uncertainty, I examine how, within the framework of two different political projects that could be understood as antagonistic, these types of materials have constituted artifices that seek to materialize promises of development around plans for regional development and greater national and international integration.