LIBERALISMO Y CIENTIFISMO: LA SEGUNDA MISIÓN GEODÉSICA FRANCESA EN EL ECUADOR (2MGFE) Y LA DINÁMICA MODERNIZADORA LIBERAL

Abstract

The second French geodetic mission in Ecuador (2MGFE) is at the center of a series of interests that go far beyond the scientific realm. First, they can be identified in the light of the ambitious national construction project promoted by the Liberal Revolution, which sought to modernize the country in the name of a positivist- inspired “civilization” and “progress”: infrastructure construction, territorial integration of regions. still poorly interconnected, conso- lidation of central state authority in the face of centrifugal forces. The support of the liberal governments for the 2MGFE also shows the will to promote scientific curiosity and develop a critical spirit to create a new and modern Ecuadorian, a citizen emancipated from the old dogmas. But the conviction that French geodesics could be the ideal agents of progress transcended political divisions, as the third and final part shows. Indeed, the Ecuadorian elites were inserted in transnational networks of commercial and cultural exchanges, Franco-Ecuadorian in particular, which created a favorable environment for the work of the 2MGF. From the initiatives of Vicente Rocafuerte to those of the ultramontane conservative García Moreno or the reforms of progressivism, very early on, the belief in scientific progress and the certainty that France could be both its vector and its agent in the country were rooted, laying the groundwork for a consensus favorable to the 2MGFE in the early 20th century.