New Arenas of Development:

Nuevos campos de desarrollo: LA POLTICA CULTURAL DE LA COOPERACIN CHINA-COSTARRICENSEDr. MONICA DeHARTUniversidad de Puget Sound, EEUUMexico, Mayo 20121La nueva cooperacion China-CostarricenseCmo est cambiando los practicas y los fines de desarrollo en la regin?

Dnde y cmo est visible China en Costa Rica?En cules actores, procesos, lugares, ideas y valores?

Cmo interpretan los Costarricenses la cualidad y las implicacciones de la presencia China?Identidad nacionalLos campos de desarrollo global

What commenced from these questions will be the subject of my talk tonight. This material represents a new research projectone for which I still have many more questions than answers, and as I talk tonight, Ill articulate those as often as I can, both to demonstrate some of the epistemological and methodological challenges this project represents for me, as well as to inspire your comments. My plan for the next hour is to give you a brief overview of the debates that are framing Chinas growing global influence, especially in the developing world, and then to situate its relationship with Latin America in particular. For the majority of the talk, Ill draw on my research in Costa Rica as a place where we can see some of these dynamics on the ground. Ill use some of these moments to speculate about what they might be showing us about Chinas prospective impact in Latin America. After dinner, Ill be happy to go into more depth about any of the areas, but also to entertain your ideas about how 2PropuestasA pesar de la reconfiguracin del paisaje de desarrollo global, los efectos de las nuevas relaciones con China no son coherentes, seguros o trascendentes.Necesidad de problematizar los modelos que pretienden explicar la proyeccin global de China

Persisten las jerarquas primer-tercermundistas y la importancia de los esencialismos culturales como marcos de interpretacin de estas nuevas relaciones.La inauguracin

To begin tonight, I want to take you to San Jose, Costa Rica in March of last year, during a moment that caught not only my eye, but also the imagination and fears of many others. This moment was the inauguration of Costa Ricas brand new, 33-K person stadium. The inaugural ceremony included fireworks, cultural performances, and speeches by Costa Ricas presidents as well as other politicians. Over the subsequent week, the celebration continued with professional soccer games, boxing matches, symphony performances, and even concerts by international sensation, Shakira.

4El Grano de Caf - El Nido Tico

Why was this stadium such a big deal? For one, it represented a potent sign of Costa Rican modernization and development. The stadium was built on the footprint of an older, much smaller stadium in the heart of the capitol, San Jose. Its modern architectural design, aesthetic attractiveness, and facilities, including the stadium, a hotel, medical and conference facilities made it what one Costa Rican called, an overnight national icon. Indeed, Oscar Arias Sanchez, the president responsible for the stadiums construction, gave the stadium its first nickname when he commented that its split-roof design made the stadium reminiscent of Costa Ricas main agricultural exportthe Coffee Bean.

5La joya del nuevo siglo llega desde Asia

The stadiums other main appeal, however, had less to do with its national identity and more Costa Ricas with place on a shifting map of global development. The stadium, after all, was funded and built by China in appreciation for Costa Ricas 2007 decision to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the PRC. The stadium thus symbolized how Costa Ricas development dreams were materializing through China, and the powerful economic opportunities and political possibilities it could provide. Indeed, it was this budding transpacific relationship that inspired the stadiums other moniker, The Tico-Nido or the Costa Rica Nesta reference to the Beijing stadium, known colloquially as the Birds Nest, built for the 2008 Olympics. 6La cara de la nueva China?

How the stadium was built. China gave Arias the option to choose a public goodhe chose the stadium (rather than a convention center). China agreed to deliver a stadium in 24 months, and turned the project over to AFECC, a state-subsidized private construction firm that has done many stadium and infrastructure projects in Asia and Africa. The firm produced several designs for the stadium, and Arias selected one. The firm then brought over approximately 700 workers, and all of the building materials and equipment. In accordance with strict supervision from Costa Rican labor and environmental groups, the firm followed Costa Rican labor/environmental laws. Workers labored for no more than 8 hours a day; although sometimes construction would go in three shifts, thus happening around the clock. The stadium was finished 3 months ahead of schedule.

This construction process turned out to be one of the main ways that Costa Ricans talked about the stadium. These commentaries highlighted some of the surprising ways that China was made visible through the project and how that image shaped Costa Rican notions not only of China itself, but also of Costa Rica's own identity in relation to China in the contemporary development landscape.

For example, Ericka, an affluent, 30-something Tica (shorthand for Costa Rican) whom I interviewed in June 2011 had already attended three different events in the stadium, including a Shakira concert for which tickets cost $200. She raved about the stadium, 'You won't believe it,it's really beautiful; it's just marvelous, really impressive'. Describing the stadium's construction, she said 'everyone' was fine with the presence of Chinese laborers because they knew they (Costa Ricans) could never do something like that on their own. Furthermore, she complemented the Chinese laborers for working day and night in such an industrious way that the stadium was finished three months ahead of schedule. To illustrate her point she added, 'They were like ants, going back and forth all day long'. She even noted the sad death of one worker during the construction, implying that workers like him had gone so far as to 'give their lives for the project'. She compared these impressive Chinese workers to the slothful Costa Rican vagos (lazy bums), whom she called good for nothing.

One reporter noted incredulously, 'Theworkers don't even stop their work during the daily tropical downpours that for last hours and continue from the end of April to November'. Laborers' dedication was on further noted at the 2010 handover ceremony of the stadium when the Chinese workers continued laboring through the diplomatic ritual and media coverage of the event.

Rounding out the chorus of critiques, one young, male attendee at the inaugural ceremony noted that he was 'very proud of the stadium, which we could never build ourselves'

These perceptions imbued Chinese workers with First World efficiency and engineering know-how compared to the lazy, slow, local laborers, who were seen as incapable of this kind of development feat. Read in this light, the stadium construction project elevated China and China's workers to emphasize their development capacity in the face of Costa Rica's lack. It reiterated China as a development donor and First World nation, possessing of the particular capacities and resources that Costa Rica was missing.

7Un modelo chino?

Zambias new stadium in NdolaCritical views

'I bet you there's several stadiums in Africa just like ours' they scoffed. One Costa Rica stadium official added, '[The Chinese] came here thinking this would be Africa'. He criticized how Chinese engineers had tried to assert special privileges and status in Costa Rica by seeking diplomatic immunity and driving without license plates. In his mind, these actions indicated that China conflated Costa Rica and Africa as lesser nations where the Chinese should enjoy certain entitlements. This behavior flew in the face of the South-South solidarity and mutual respect that the Chinese proclaimed as the organizing principles for their collaboration, reenacting the First-Third World divide rather than dissolving it. Here, however, it was Costa Rica rather than China that was slotted in the Third World position.

8ConclusionesLa incapacidad de los modelos de explicar la realiadad complicada y contradictoria que define las relaciones de desarrollo en la practicaIntereses convergentes y complementarios, por lo menos a corto plazoLa reafirmacin de la diferencia esencial (en vez del acercamiento o conversin)

El reciclaje y la recodificacin de los conceptos que pretienden describir la jerarqua global de desarrollo