In June 2025, the C²DH will be hosting the international conference "Confronting Decline (CONDE) – Challenges of Deindustrialization in European Societies since the 1970s".
Organisation: C²DH / University of Luxembourg; Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History, Munich
Venue: University of Luxembourg, Esch-Belval
Date: 25–27 June 2025
Deadline: 30 June 2024
See more, Conference Website
Since the 1970s, deindustrialization has fundamentally changed Western industrial societies. In North America and Europe, thousands of jobs have been lost in traditional industrial regions, in particular in the textile industry, coal mining, the iron and steel industry and shipbuilding. Even in the electronic consumer goods sector and the watch and photography industries, many millions of jobs have been eliminated or relocated to other regions of the world. There is no question that deindustrialization is one of the most far-reaching transformation processes in contemporary history, fundamentally changing landscapes, economic structures and socio-cultural environments.
Starting from this observation, the conference, organised by the CONDE research group, will reflect on the impact and wider historical reverberations of deindustrialization in Europe from the 1970s onwards. While deindustrialization was initially addressed mainly by the social sciences, in recent years historians have increasingly turned their attention to the subject, pointing to the complexity of the historical phenomenon. In contrast to economic concepts such as "restructuring" or "downsizing", which do not adequately capture societal and social change, a historical approach to deindustrialization can offer a broader view, encompassing multiple dimensions: first, the economic development of production, turnover and sales; second, the political shaping of the policy field; third, the cultural ramifications; and fourth, a perspective from below, which takes into account personal memories of workers, the dissolution of traditional social and cultural communities and changes in social spaces.
The conference will focus on the European particularities of deindustrialization since the 1970s – in Western and Eastern Europe, with an East-West comparison over the epochal years 1989/90, and in terms of entanglements among European states and beyond. What distinguished Europe from the US and Canada, from the North American experience of deindustrialization? To what extent did European reactions to deindustrialization differ from one country to the next? Did the Cold War resonate in deindustrialization policies, in the ensuing political mobilization or in personal experiences? In what ways did deindustrialization leave its mark on the co-transformation process after 1989/90, both in the East and in the West? Last but not least: is it possible to conceive of a specifically ‘European’ deindustrialization?
