[ATHENA] Séminaire HSHI - 14 décembre 2023 : Jaume Valentines-Álvarez, Quitoxic giants

[Raphael Lavie <raphael.lavie AT gmail.com>]

Jeudi 14 décembre 2023, de 17h à 19h, aura lieu la prochaine séance du séminaire "Histoire des Sciences - Histoire de l'innovation" de Sorbonne Université. Nous aurons le plaisir d'accueillir Jaume Valentines-Álvarez, chercheur à Institut d'Història de la Ciència, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, qui interviendra sur le sujet suivant :

 

"Quixotic giants, wind and blades in the Iberian landscapes, 1975-2011: Towards a history of the social destruction of technology"

 

Lieu: Maison de la Recherche de Sorbonne Université, salle 116, 28 rue Serpente 75006 Paris

 

Abstract:

In the context of the 1973 oil crisis, the death of dictator Francisco Franco opened the door to a turmoil period known as the “Spanish Transition.” National politics, political violence and social demands were interwoven with international shifts in science and technology and global debates on “energy transitions.” In close dialogue with environmental groups from France and abroad, the anti-nuclear movement in Spain deployed a large repertoire of collective action; it ranged from pleasant activities to violent direct actions against nuclear technologies, but also included the making of innovative technologies. Counter-culture activists and counter-experts opposed nuclear energy and promoted renewable energy as two sides of the same coin.

In this talk, I will explore the intertwined initiatives of an anarchist-oriented group called Self- Managed Radical Alternative Technologies, created in 1976, and a group of young engineers who founded the cooperative Ecotècnia and were behind the construction of the first commercial wind turbine in Catalonia in 1984. I will focus on: 1) the transnational (and especially transPyrenean) circulation of grassroots knowledge; 2) the epistemic role of resistance; 3) the development of wind technologies as “technologies of protest” between 1976 and 1984 and 4) how “technologies of protest” became “technologies to be protested” three decades later. Technologies of protest illuminate how the social construction of technology is intertwined with what I call the “social destruction of technology.”

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