Tensions of Europe

The Tensions of Europe (ToE) international network was initiated at Eindhoven, the Netherlands in 1999. It qualified as a European Science Foundation network in excellence in 2000 and became successful not least by extending its networks to include joint research involving scholars from many different geographical regions of Europe.

Technology is seen, by this community, in its societal and path-dependent context; this means as a materially oriented, knowledge and skill-based socio-economic endeavor – as old as humankind itself is. Research and teaching areas of this are e.g. infrastructure and artifacts; people, practices and values; knowledge, ideas and skills; networks, institutions and governance; citizen initiatives and truth enactments. More specifically this may entail how technological processes have connected and divided Europe, how “Europe” has related closely, and not seldom in hegemonic ways, to its peripheries and to its adjacent and overseas colonies. Europe in recent times itself developing into a playground for global economic and technological forces exerted from centers now far away from its own capitals.

A Tensions of Europe website conveys information on the networks many projects and initiatives. NSRG is related to the ToE's Research Group "Technology, Environment and Resources", led by Matthias Heymann at Aarhus University.