Projects / Programmes
Strategies and praxis of energy supply in Slovenia
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.01.00 |
Humanities |
Historiography |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H270 |
Humanities |
Social and economic history |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.01 |
Humanities |
History and Archaeology |
Economic history, social history, economy, modernization, energy, energy supply, techology, tehnology changes, economic restructuring, everyday life
Researchers (9)
Organisations (2)
Abstract
Energy supply is one of the most important economic processes in the economic life, especially in the modern economic system. It is one of the central phenomena and activities, present constantly at the background of the ongoing processes. The transition to new energy sources represents a technological and social turning point. Energy resources are the symbol, or rather the motive or consequence of the technological progress. The introduction of new energy resources is the result of the scientific and technical revolution at the turn of the nineteenth century, the result of the basic innovative and applicative processes. The adoption of these achievements in real life has caused far-reaching consequences in all aspects of the economy, landscape and people's lives – in the technical, technological and consequently also economic and social context.
This general and very broad definition also underlines the goals of the project: to explore and interpret the multi-layered historical aspects, that is, the strategy, manner and practice involved in the energy supply in Slovenia in the last century and a half. As a demanding technological, economic, ecological and social process, the ways and contexts of energy supply have also had profound effects on the structure of the economy and society. The problem of energy dependence defines the modern societies and their strategies of the economic and social development significantly. A stable energy supply is definitely more than a simple technological or economic paradigm. It is a fact that energy supply is impossible to reduce to such narrow categories. Namely, in time it has become the way of life. Therefore in the conceptualisation of the research problem we can emphasise, as the central research goal of the example of energy supply, the process dynamics of co-dependence or interdependence of energy supply technologies and socio-economic structure in a long-term historical perspective.
Basically the project is divided into two fundamental levels. The first one involves the chronological aspect at the vertical level, and the second one involves the substantive aspect at the synchronous level. At the vertical level the research can be divided into the basic energy resources in the last two centuries: wood, coal, electricity, gas and oil, or the mutually intertwined periods defined by the aforementioned energy resources. Within these temporal coordinates the substantive thematisations of the energy industry in Slovenia take place. Here the contents are also divided into two aspects – two backgrounds, defining or allowing the energy supply. Conditionally these two aspects can be referred to as the technological and social aspect of energy supply.
Significance for science
To date no comprehensive historical explorations of energy supply in Slovenia, which would transcend the level of partially researched phenomena, have been completed. We lack an in depth research of the integration of energy supply in the context of the history of progress, technological changes and development in the industrial period – a modern study of the importance of the energy industry in the wider economic history. At the same time we lack an in depth socio and cultural historical study on the impact of energy supply on everyday life, which has changed radically as it – in the civilisational sense – progressed to the current state. The project was designed in such a way as to emphasise the aforementioned deficient fields of research as the central research problem. Therefore also at the conceptual and methodological level it represents a novelty in the Slovenian historiography. The research results will represent a contribution to the scientific synthesis of the Slovenian economic and social history in the last two centuries. The familiarity with the Slovenian economic and social history of the energy industry will allow for further comparative studies on the Slovenian economic and social development with regard to similar countries or the immediate surroundings (the Central European space) as well as the wider Europe. Thus a realistic comparison and evaluation of the Slovenian economic and social development will be made possible, and at the same time the peculiarities and characteristics of the Slovenian development in the wider and narrower economic political environment will be looked at. The research will also highlight the integration of Slovenia into these environments, processes and forces, which have not only been characteristic of Slovenia, but of all the environments where Slovenians have lived in the past. To date no research projects have been completed in Slovenia which would encompass the impact of the energy industry in the Slovenian space in a broad substantive and temporal context, taking into account the technological as well as the economic social and environmental viewpoints and their interdependence.
Significance for the country
The suggested research has direct impact on the field of preserving the national cultural heritage and presenting it in a comprehensive manner. The historical dimensions of the technological and social aspects of energy supply in the Slovenian territory introduce additional elements into the conceptualisation of the cultural and historical memory as it exists now. The work involves a distinctive and analytic interaction between technology and society in a long period of time (two centuries), presented at the synthetic level. The realisation of the project with the knowledge synthesised keeps further expanding the area of discussion within contemporary Slovenian historiography in the field of economic and social history. The acquisition of new realisations about the interaction between society and technology in the case of energy supply in a broad context in the empirical as well as interpretative framework allows for the communication of the Slovenian scientific sphere with foreign expert circles, ensuring the empirical and interpretative foundations for other humanities and social science disciplines in Slovenia. By exchanging knowledge and experience in the broader international space, integration into the contemporary historiographic developments will be furthered, while the upgrading of our own realisations with the corpus of the information from the European and world context will be stimulated.
Most important scientific results
Annual report
2011,
2013,
final report,
complete report on dLib.si
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Annual report
2011,
2013,
final report,
complete report on dLib.si
