ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Fusing Diversity: National Traditions, Disciplinary Boundaries, and the Making of a European Fusion Community, 1957–2007

• In Event: Shifting Perspectives: Diversity, Geographies, and Possibilities in the Physical Sciences (no 2)

English Abstract

The history of European fusion research offers a distinctive lens through which to examine diversity in the physical sciences—across nations, institutions, and disciplines. From the creation of EURATOM in 1957 to the establishment of ITER in 2007, fusion became a space where heterogeneous epistemic, technical, and political traditions converged. Physicists and engineers from differing national laboratories in Europe brought contrasting experimental cultures, design philosophies, and understandings of what counted as “scientific” or “technological.” Their collaboration required not only organizational coordination but also the negotiation of epistemic and disciplinary boundaries. Drawing on archival sources, interviews, and network analysis, this paper reconstructs how these national and disciplinary identities shaped the trajectory of European fusion cooperation. It shows that the integration of European fusion efforts—often celebrated as a story of political or technological unification—was also an epistemic process, in which diversity was a constant matter of negotiation and often a source of contestation. The overarching political project of European integration struggled to create uniformity of views needed to sustain a large-scale, collectively funded program. By foregrounding the plural geographies and identities embedded in fusion research in Europe, the paper supports a historiographical perspective that sees diversity not as deviation from universality but as a constitutive and contested feature of scientific knowledge and its institutions.

Author

• Roberto Lalli, Politecnico di Torino