Call for Papers: 10th Tensions of Europe Conference, Aarhus University, Denmark, 29 June – 1 July 2022
Call for Papers
The 10th Tensions of Europe Conference
Aarhus University, Denmark
29 June – 1 July 2022*
Conference theme: Technology, Environment and Resources
The 10th Tensions of Europe Conference will as usual be open to all topics and themes. The special theme of this conference will be the history of interactions between technology, the environment and resources. It aims to explore connections between aspects such as scientific exploration, technological development, resource exploitation and use, resource markets and environmental change by investigating both scientific and technological practices as well as narratives and perspectives related to natural resources and environmental issues. The conference places particular emphasis on processes of circulation and appropriation of knowledge, ideas, technologies and resources across space and time in all historical periods and at local, regional and global scales.
Technology has been a major factor in using, shaping and understanding environments, as demonstrated at the 7th Tensions of Europe Conference in Stockholm in 2015. The 10th Tensions of Europe Conference continues and deepens this thread, paying particular attention to histories of natural resources. Our understanding of the concept “natural resources” is broad, comprising water, metals, minerals and energy along with living resources such as fish, forests and agricultural products. Most technological, social and environmental changes in history, as well as the way in which we understand and make sense of these changes, relate to natural resources in diverse and intricate ways.
Resources provide the basis for subsistence and industrial production; they play a role in fostering or hindering innovation, motivating or justifying technological systems and complex infrastructures, easing or aggravating national and international social and political tensions and relieving or causing significant social and environmental burdens. Just as important as the material and physical manifestations of resource regimes and their changes over time are their intellectual and ideological underpinnings, their conceptual analysis, their communication and presentation in media and the construction of narratives including excessive expectations and doomsday visions.
Themes and questions of particular interest include: