The ways and means of ITER: reciprocity and compromise in fusion science diplomacy

ITER (short for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, and the Latin word for \u27the way\u27, as in \u27the way to new energy\u27), a controlled thermonuclear fusion experiment currently being built in Cadarache, France, is one of the world\u27s largest technoscientific collaborations. ITER\u27s complex organisation is rooted in decisions taken during the early negotiation phase in the 1990s. This article focuses on this initial period of the ITER negotiations, showing the importance of reciprocity and compromise in the organizational decisions of the project. These decisions were enacted by actors and organisations who strived to keep ITER together through continuous \u27backstage\u27 diplomacy work. This work included finding acceptable compromises for the involved Parties on both a diplomatic and scientific level. Looking closely at such work reveals the entangled character of science and diplomacy in large international technoscientific collaborations, as well as the need for compromise to make a project like ITER materialise

An even colder war? Specialization and scientization in the training methods of cross-country skiing from the 1940s in Sweden and the Soviet Union.

This work analyzes the official training advice given to prospective elite skiers in Sweden and the Soviet Union from the late 1940s until the 1970s. How was training scientized in relation to the Cold War context? In what ways did neutral Sweden differ from the Soviet Union? What type of organizations took an interest in the rationalization of training and why? The sportification process accelerated during the Cold War period in both the Soviet Union and Sweden, despite their many differences in political system, international relations, tradition and economy. It is also clear that the scientific contribution to sport, not least skiing, was vital in both countries. As the knowledge about Soviet sport science and training development increases, this also sheds new light on the Cold War era and its impact on sport. For the developments in cross-country skiing as well as sport science, the conscious effort by the Soviet Union to be the avant-garde of scientized training directly affected other countries such as Sweden into accelerating their own efforts. The Cold War was therefore not only fought in space or by military means, but also in labs and skiing tracks. What is particularly interesting is that similar research on athletes was motivated in radically different ways. In Soviet, sports and thus also sport science was highly political. In Sweden, it was framed as neutral, relating more to rationality and scientific ideals than to sport performance

Is there such a thing as a capitalist eschatology?

This short communication presents preliminary notes about how to study the role of eschatology in the contemporary economy, focusing specifically on space-colonizing ambitions of US entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk. It is suggested that the proposed research agenda focuses on three problematics, relating to immediacy, investment, and ideology. As such, the text proposes to study the making of alternative futures by situating imaginaries of humanity becoming a multiplanetary species in the present realities of political economy

Chasing uranium: Securing nuclear fuel on a transnational arena in Sweden 1971–1984

Access to nuclear fuel is a key point for modern nuclear nations. Despite this, the complex processes of the nuclear fuel cycle are seldom discussed in nuclear history. In order to shed light on how actors in the nuclear business have worked to secure access to fuel, this article describes the historical case of uranium import in Sweden, handled by the public-private company SKBF. The risks and challenges brought on by the expansion of the nuclear program in Sweden can be clearly seen in the work of SKBF, and the article gives insight into the complex transnational processes of the nuclear fuel cycle. The article outlines the creation of SKBF as well as its mission and activities during the 1970s, when Sweden tried to navigate the evolving uranium market while dealing with heightening tensions regarding nuclear politics at home. We show how SKBF acted in a constantly shifting national and international arena to secure a rapidly expanding nuclear system and legitimize its actions to the Swedish government. In this process, uranium was perceived in different ways: as national or international, scarce or plentiful, and to varying degrees an economic or political tool

Rising Seas: Facts, Fictions and Aquaria

Curating the Future: Museums, Communities and Climate Change explores the way museums tackle the broad global issue of climate change. It explores the power of real objects and collections to stir hearts and minds, to engage communities affected by change. Museums work through exhibitions, events, and specific collection projects to reach different communities in different ways. The book emphasises the moral responsibilities of museums to address climate change, not just by communicating science but also by enabling people already affected by changes to find their own ways of living with global warming. There are museums of natural history, of art and of social history. The focus of this book is the museum communities, like those in the Pacific, who have to find new ways to express their culture in a new place. The book considers how collections in museums might help future generations stay in touch with their culture, even where they have left their place. It asks what should the people of the present be collecting for museums in a climate-changed future? The book is rich with practical museum experience and detailed projects, as well as critical and philosophical analyses about where a museum can intervene to speak to this great conundrum of our times. Curating the Future is essential reading for all those working in museums and grappling with how to talk about climate change. It also has academic applications in courses of museology and museum studies, cultural studies, heritage studies, digital humanities, design, anthropology, and environmental humanities

Crises and Technological Futures: Experiences, Emotion, and Action

We have grown accustomed to the near-constant invocation of "crisis" as part of our everyday media consumption. During periods of insecurity, historically contingent crisis imaginaries tend to evolve, linking developments in the historical present to cultural memories of a fearful past and visions of an unwanted future. A historical understanding of these imaginaries, along with their societal and material aftermath-including their impact in relation to political choice and decision-making-is imperative for the history of technology. This article aims to problematize the complex relationship between crisis imaginaries and technological futures acknowledging the triple temporality of crises. In order to shed light on the rich potential of historical research into the entanglements of past- and future-oriented crisis narratives, we exemplify this approach in three empirical research themes: security and the experience of past and future; fears as drivers of technological development; political decision-making and the future of space mining

Capitalist eschatology: Immediacy, investment, ideology

This paper presents some preliminary ideas on how to study the place of eschatology in the contemporary economy, focusing specifically on space-colonizing ambitions of US entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk. Such a study may focus on three problematics, relating to immediacy, investment, and ideology. The study of what one may call “capitalist eschatology” involves interrogating the making of alternative futures, by situating imaginaries of humanity becoming a multiplanetary species in the present realities of political economy. The authors combine STS and ethnographic method with a history of technology perspective, in order to study both the present and the long roots of the sociotechnical and economic practices and imaginaries that make up such a “eschatology”

Creating, capturing, and circulating commodities: The technology and politics of material resource flows, from the 19th century to the present

Extractive resources are unevenly distributed geographically and our dependence on such resources is growing, which has led to ever increasing flows of resources across the world. This situation has caused concern for numerous actors. However, such worries are not new. Todays’ feel of a deeply interconnected, rapidly changing world with global grand challenges has striking resemblances with the nineteenth century mood in the industrializing countries. In this special issue we study the temporal dynamics and multiple geographies of resource flows, and how actors have attempted to shape and control them. In five articles by historians of technology and the environment from Sweden, Russia and the Netherlands, we aim to broaden the view on resource narratives and emphasize their non-static characters by showing developments of resources as they travel through time and space. This introductory article introduces and positions five themes that are addressed in the contributions of special issue. In this special issue scholars discuss (1) the social construction of resources, (2) the importance of resources to nation states, (3) resource flows as transnational practices, (4) technopolitics of resources, and (5) resource flows as global political power hierarches, of resources such as oil, metals, iron ore, uranium and stone