Research Programs The past and the future of Europe have become pressing analytical issues with a sharp political edge. Many people believe that the future will be determined by the European integration process. Increasingly, Europe seems to be represented by the space that is occupied by the EU, and hence European and EU identities might merge.
The ESF EUROCORES program Inventing Europe: Technology and the Making of Europe, 1850 to the Present aims at looking at Europe's past to explore which European spaces were constructed since 1850 by whom, why, and with which kind of impact, e.g. who was marginalized and silenced? The program uses a much neglected lens to research this process. It will examine how technology operated as an agent of change in the contested processes of the making of European spaces. It focuses on how technical communities, social groups, and citizens have contested, projected, performed, and reproduced ‘Europe’ in constructing and using a range of technologies. This approach had been pioneered in the ESF Scientific Network "Tensions of Europe", later continued under the auspices of the private Dutch Foundation for the history of technology (SHT). The resulting network of scholars produced a research agenda which is at the roots of "Inventing Europe".
"Inventing Europe" aims to make a contribution to the newly emerging transnational history research perspective. Hence, it will integrate the role of the nation-states, but also pays ample attention to the circulation of people, ideas, goods, services and artefacts, the behaviour of transnational networks and alliances, and the linking and entanglements of cities, nation-states and regions in and beyond Europe. The program will examine how technology transfer and the interaction with its (former) colonies and the United States has shaped the construction of Europe. The mutual shaping of Europe and technology will be studied in a long-term historical perspective, going back in some cases to the middle of the nineteenth century. In particular, three categories of technologies will be examined: 1) infrastructures such as railways, roads, and electricity networks; 2) knowledge networks and large-scale technological European project; 3) user regimes and consumer products. It is expected that the program will not only recast the historical understanding of integration and the emergence of Europe as an ideal, concept, and practice, but will also shed new light on prevailing interpretations of both Hot and Cold Wars which have dominated European historiography.
The program has ambitious aims in terms of its deliverables. Not only does it seek to nurture a number of large and genuine international research collaborations, it also aims at bringing together the results in a jointly produced coherent book series and a virtual exhibit for a general audience. To make this possible the program will pursue an intensive networking and dissemination strategy, interacting with many other research networks and with individual scholars in the social sciences and humanities who share its concerns.
Introduction video:
Stichting Historie der Techniek -- Revised: 14-04-2010 Chamber of Commerce Eindhoven 41155291.