Research Group on Technology, Environment and Resources

Coordinators

Elena Kochetkova, University of Bergen, Norway
(Contact:  Elena.Kochetkova[at]uib.no) 

Matthias Heymann, Aarhus University, Denmark
(Contact: matthias.heymann[at]css.au.dk)

Resources & crises

There are many examples in history where the overexploitation of resources led to depletion and pollution and caused societal, environmental and technological crises. Yet, there is no comprehensive discussion how societies responded to resource crises, how they perceived and framed these crises, formed and pursued strategies of relief, changed patterns of resource exploitation, ‘constructed’ new resources (such as physical or rhetorical substitutes), employed new geopolitical policies (from securing foreign resources to waging wars) and developed new technologies (such as technologies increasing resource availability or efficiency) to overcome crises.

The aim of this research group is to examine connections between resources, crises and technology in Europe or in European engagements beyond Europe in the 19th to 21st centuries. Particular attention will be paid to the circulation of technologies, knowledge and ideas within Europe and from or to Europe, which are related to resource crises. This includes circulation processes within individual countries (e.g. between centers and periphery), in between European countries (e.g. East-West and North-South) and between Europe and other continents (e.g. with European colonies). With this approach we propose to discuss the crossroads between the history of technology, environmental history, and the history of exploitation of natural resources in a longue-durée perspective with the help of individual case studies.

Major questions to be asked

  • How was technology used by European states, scientists, local communities and other actors to explore, excavate, transform and use natural resources? What impact did it have on changing patterns of resource use?
  • How did actual or perceived resource crises support the development and application of technologies and the exploration of new resources and new territories?
  • Which geopolitical implications did resource needs and perceptions and visions of resources in Europe have beyond Europe?
  • How did perceptions and visions of resources and the relations of society, technology and resources change over time in European societies and institutions?
  • How did technology contribute to conceptions of development and sustainability and the emergence of forestry and water politics, agricultural development, biofuels and green technologies?

 

Meetings and activities

  • Workshop I: Technology, natural resources and crises in the past and present of Europe and beyond (St. Petersburg, Russia, October 2016).
    The workshop hosted about 40 participants from the USA, Russia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, and other countries. See program.
  • Workshop II: Technology, natural resources and crises in the past and present of Europe and beyond II (Aarhus, Denmark, May 2017).
    Workshop Program    Workshop Report    Workshop Website
  • Stringed sessions at the 8th Tensions of Europe Conference in Athens (September 2017). See session program.
  • Writing workshop “Challenging Europe: Technology, environment and the quest for resource security” (KTH Stockholm, 13-15 June 2018).
    The workshop hosted 17 participants from 8 countries, who submitted and discussed 16 manuscripts and comments to them and decided after intensive discussion on the plan to develop three special issues for different reviewed journals.
  • EURES Kick-off Workshop “Perceptions and constructions of resources, resource crises and resource futures: looking at the Arctic and other spaces” (Aarhus University, 8-9 November 2018). Final program Kick-off Workshop Aarhus.
    The workshop hosted 31 participants from 11 countries.
  • EURES Workshop 2 “Economic development and environmental transformations in Europe extractive peripheries (16th-21th centuries)” (EHESS, Paris, 21 November 2018). Workshop Program
  • Session at the 9th Tensions of Europe Conference in Luxemburg (July 2019) “Natural Resources in the Age of Mechanization and Digitalization: Technological Change, National Narratives and Transnational Connections”.
  • EURES-GREASE Workshop “Resources, Infrastructures and the Anthropocene: Dialogues between the Global-North and the Global-South”,Caparica Campus, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal, 18 - 20 September 2019.
  • The Research Group will be organizer of the 10th Tensions of Europe Conference "Technology, Environment and Resources" at Aarhus University, Denmark,  29 June to 1 July 2022. Also this conference has been postponed by one year. Conference website.
  • EURES final workshop “Global fat resources: Connecting themes, approaches and narratives, ca. 1850-2022”, University of Bergen, 23-24 May 2023. CfP (pdf).
  • 3-session panel “Earth repair? Global Perspectives on Technologies and Narratives of Sustainability” at the ICOHTEC-SHOT 2024 joined conference, Viña del Mar, Chile, 9-14 July 2024.
  • 3-session panel “Towards sustainability of global resources, fair trade and global justice? Experiences, challenges and narratives of transformation” at the 11th Tensions of Europe Conference on Transformations, Fundamental Change and Technology in Frankfurt/Oder, 19-21 Sept. 2024.

 

Projects

Joint proposal writing led to the following international collaborative research network projects:

 

Publications

Special Issues:

 

Selected overview papers: