Inventing Europe. A Transnational History of European Integration
1. Main rationale and objective
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 co-determined by the European integration process. This is one of the reasons why countries that were once part of the former Soviet Union eagerly wanted to enter the Union. This was seen as a return to Europe. Increasingly, Europe seems to represent the space that is occupied by the EU, and it is anticipated that European and EU identities might merge. Hence, it seems important and timely to place the history of the integration process in a broader history of Europe, including the ruptures of wars, nationalism, and global tensions.
The proposed theme group Inventing Europe. A Transnational History of European Integration, 1850-2000 aims to explore which European spaces were constructed and integrated since 1850 by whom, why, and with which kind of impact, e.g. who and what was marginalised and silenced? [1] The notion of space refers to the ambition not to naturalise the model of territorially self-enclosed nation-states, and to avoid state-centred modes of analysis without however denying the historical importance of the nation-states. The aim is to analyse the emergence of various economic, political and cultural transnational European spaces (for example networks, communities, regimes, landscapes, patterns) beyond the nation-states in which notions of Europe, European unification, integration were imagined, developed and lived. As we hope to show these framings of Europe were also important vectors in colonial and transatlantic crossings as well as in encounters between the West and the East.[2] By doing so, it will be possible to place the European integration history that begun after the Second World War into a much deeper and broader history of constructing and experiencing various Europes since 1850.
The theme group uses a much neglected, but highly appropriate, 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. Technology is defined not only as machines, products, systems, and infrastructures but also as skills and knowledge that make them work. In addition, technological change is understood as a deeply political, economic and social process involving people and institutions. Using this contextual definition of technology, the theme group will thus focus on how technical communities, companies, nation-states and social groups have contested, projected, performed, and reproduced ‘Europe’ in constructing and using a range of technologies. These include in particular: 1) network technologies in communication, transport and energy sectors; 2) knowledge intensive technologies of large-scale technological European projects; 3) consumer technologies in a wide range of areas from leisure, mass media to food and construction.
The work of the theme group will contribute to various new efforts to write European history without falling back on either a (comparative) history of European nation-states or a history of European integration that focuses exclusively on the top-down formal process of integration as represented by institution building and policy coordination among nation-states in Europe. Instead the theme group 'Inventing Europe' adopts the emergent transnational history approach to conceptualise the European integration process as an outcome of a wide-ranging set of processes of networking.[3] Central to the focus of the theme group are concepts such as circulation and transfer of people, ideas, goods, services and artefacts; the comparison of various circulation trajectories and ways they are integrated and appropriated at specific sites, including the nation state and the city; research on the role of transnational networks and alliances. This ambition to write a new history of European integration through the lens of technology might impact history writing in many fields, for example European history, European integration history, history of technology, business history, consumption history, and global history. It might also impact the broad field of European studies in the political and social sciences.
2. The structure of the book series and composition of theme groups
The planned book series consists of six commissioned co-authored books. The book series editors are Johan Schot and Phil Scranton. The book series editors are responsible for organising the communication and coherence between the volumes, and arranging a book series contract.
These are the topics, working titles and authors/researchers for each volume:
Volume 1: Maria Paula Diogo, Dirk van Laak, and Matthias Middell , Europe in the Global World, or how Europe was imagined and lived in colonial, ex-colonial, and other global circulations and exchanges;
Volume 2: Arne Kaijser, Erik van der Vleuten and Per Høgselius, From Nature to Networks. The Infrastructural Transformation of Europe, or how Europe (and its landscape) was constituted by the construction, and use of transnational communication, energy and transport infrastructures;
Volume 3: Mikael Hård and Ruth Oldenziel, European Technological Dramas: Histories of Consumption and Use or how European transnational spaces emerged in the process of producing, distributing and using a range of consumer goods;
Volume 4: Andreas Fickers, Pascal Griset and collaborating researcher Alexander Badenoch, Eventing Europe. Electronic Information, and Communication Spaces in Europe, or how Europe was experienced in the production and use of (mass) media;
Volume 5: Helmuth Trischler and Martin Kohlrausch, Knowledge Societies, Expert Networks and Innovation Cultures in Europe or how Europe became articulated through efforts to construct European standards, expert knowledge and networks -in a range of sectors from city planners to computer scientists, and large-scale projects and artefacts, for example in military, space and nuclear technology;
Volume 6: Wolfram Kaiser, Johan Schot and Dagmara Jajeśniak-Quast, Governing Europe: Technology, Experts and Networks, or how the emergence of a series of European transnational spaces since 1850 shaped the European integration process. This volume will explicitly focus on a reinterpretation of the European integration process.
We are planning to organise two larger three day workshops at NIAS: one in autumn 2010 and one in spring 2011. For these workshops we will also invite a number of other collaborating researchers and "committed spectators" who have been working with the book authors on the development of the proposals from the beginning, and are involved in the Tensions of Europe Network and of which the book proposals are an offspring.
3. History of proposal, relationship to ongoing research initiatives and planning
The work of the theme group builds on a collaboration that began almost 10 years ago, but since then has been expanded considerably. In 1999 the private Dutch Foundation for the History of Technology (SHT) took the initiative to bring together a group of historians of technology to develop an ESF Network Proposal. Between 2000 and 2003, a small group of historians of technology further pioneered the collaboration within the awarded ESF Scientific Network 'Tensions of Europe' (co-funded by a large number of European research councils and the USA NSF). The network proved durable and continued under the auspices of SHT.[4] In 2004-2005 this network of scholars produced a research agenda which was in 2005 transformed into an ESF EUROCORES collaborative research program Inventing Europe; the role of technology in the making of Europe, 1850-2000. This programme runs until September 2010.[5] Both programmes (Tensions of Europe and Inventing Europe ) have pursued an intensive networking and dissemination strategy which led to collaborations between various research networks, and between many individual scholars in the social sciences and humanities. In winter 2007/2008 a new phase began with the planning of a workshop at the European University Institute in Florence. The main product of this new phase would be a book series and a virtual exhibit in collaboration with the major science museums in Europe. Alec Badenoch, who is also applying for a NIAS fellowship, is the prospective research and content editor for the virtual exhibit. A prototype of the virtual exhibit is under construction since autumn 2009 and will be ready for the public in June 2009. Eventually the research done for each volume in the series will be translated into a (part of) the virtual exhibit.
In Florence, first ideas about the book series and virtual exhibit were discussed. The aim of the book series is to bring the results of 10 years of collaboration to a new level. That is, to integrate the planned and already done research into a more coherent body of knowledge, and provide a synthesis. The workshop resulted in a first selection of authors and books for the series. On 6-8 March a second workshop was held in Vught (with a visit and introduction to the NIAS facilities) in which second version book proposals and the virtual exhibit content were discussed. A third preparatory workshop is planned for March 2010. For this one we would like to use the NIAS facilities. Results of this workshop will be presented at the next joint Tensions of Europe/Inventing Europe conference in June 2010 (Sofia). The authors and SHT will sign a contract for the production of the book series in summer 2009. In this contract the amount of time to be>spent>on the research and writing for the book series (and virtual exhibit) will be agreed upon. Although the team can build on several years of research collaboration, it is still extremely ambitious to plan for the production of 6 volumes in one series as well as a complementary exhibit. Bringing together the authors in a place such as NIAS would be the best and only way to ensure productive interaction among authors, and substantial progress in writing of the books and production of the virtual exhibit.
The entire (past and future) planning can be detailed as follows:
3-5 July 2008
Workshop at European University Institute Florence (EUI);
discuss book proposal in response to keynote paper;July-September 2008
First selection of books and authors;3 October 2008
NIAS theme group application;10 October 2008
Presentation of book series (and virtual exhibit) at the Annual Society for the History of Technology Conference in Lisbon;Winter 2008/2009
Development of book outlines for 6 volumes/exhibit;
discussions with potential publishers6-8 March 2009
Workshop in Vught/visit to NIAS1 April 2009
Submission of individual fellow proposals15 June 2009
Submission of fully reworked book proposals to main editors and signing of contract with SHTSept 2009/2010
Research for and further development of book content/virtual exhibit;Sept. 2010/2011
Stay at NIAS. Two workshops. Writing of volume manuscripts/stories for virtual exhibitSept 2011/2012
Review of manuscripts, reworking and preparing for printing.
[1] The emphasis of space derives from the spatial turn in history, in particular in contemporary globalisation studies. For an introduction see Neil Brenner, New State Spaces. Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood (Oxford University Press 2004), in particular chapter 2.
[2] This formulation is inspired by a keynote lecture of Charles Bright, 'The Global Condition of Europe', at the launching conference of the ESF programme 'Inventing Europe' and the third plenary conference of the 'Tensions of Europe Network', Rotterdam, June 7-10, 2007.
[3] A lot of programmatic statements and introductions on transnational history are available. See for example Philipp Ther, Beyond the Nation: The Relational Basis of a Comparative History of Germany and Europe, Central European History, 36 (2003) 45-73; Kiran Klaus Patel, Ueberlegungen zu einer transnationalen Geschichte, Zeitschrift für Geschichtwissenschaft 52 (2004) 626-645; Pierre-Yves Saunier, Circulations, connexions et espaces transnationaux, Genèses, 57 (2004) 110-126. For the link between transnational history and global history see among others Sebastiaan Conrad and Domenic Sachsenmaier (eds.), Competing Visions of World Order. Global Moments and Movements, 1880s-1930s (Palgrave 2007), and for a plea for a transnational history of the European Union: see Wolfram Kaiser and Peter Starie (eds.), Transnational European Union. Towards a Common Political Space (Routledge 2005).
[4] The SHT has experience with he coordination of large scale history programs. For example, they coordinated the History of Technology in the Netherlands book series, see Johan Schot, Harry Lintsen, Arie Rip e.a. (red.)., Techniek in Nederland in de Twintigste eeuw , Vol 1-7 (1998-2003). MIT will publish translation of last volume.
[5] See various publications which resulted from preparations for the development of the Inventing Europe Research Proposal within the Tensions of Europe Network: Johan Schot, Thomas J. Misa and Ruth Oldenziel (eds.), 'Tensions of Europe. The Role of Technology in the Making of Europe', History and Technology (special issue), 1 (2005) 1-139; Erik van der Vleuten and Arne Kaijser (eds.), Networking Europe. Transnational Infrastructures and the Shaping of Europe (Science History Publications 2006); Ruth Oldenziel and Karin Zachmann (eds.), Kitchen Politics: Americanization, Technology Transfer, and European Users (MIT Press 2009); Mikael Hård and Thomas J. Misa (eds.), Urban Machinery: Inside Modern European Cities. (MIT Press, 2008); see also Johan Schot e.a. Proposal for a EUROCORES Research Programme 'Inventing Europe. Technology and the Making of Europe, 1850-to the Present' (September 2005), see www.tensionsofeurope.eu
