In the rugged path of progress:: factors involved in the production of casualties in Costa Rica. The case of Ferrrocarril to the Atlantic (1920-1940)

Abstract

Historically, the development of rail transport in Costa Rica was a function of agro-exports. Thus, the railways to the Pacific and the Caribbean meet the objective of communicating coffee-producing areas and subsequently, bananas, with the main ports of the country. This chapter is based on the conjecture that this infrastructure whose first great technological vestige is the Northern Railway Company, from the United Fruit Company, and which possesses the Costa Rica Railway Company, contributes to explain the causes of the lack of necessary protective measures, to protect the lives of human and human beings in general, at the level of institutions; the beliefs and daily practices of Costa Ricans, as well as, in material aspects, such as infrastructure. In addition, we attend to a series of modifications in social dynamics, conflicts and ways of relating to death, following railway accidents. Most of the cases that we address in this chapter, are of passengers of the train, as well as of people and animals that were beaten or run over by it, because our objective is to explain the exposure to accidents of the users, and in places where humans and animals live.