Tina Asmussen

Subterranean Economies – Mining and Metal Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1470-1650

This research project centers interactions of humans with nature and metallic materials. It investigates processes and practices of extracting, processing and valuing metals that are not restricted to mere economic and technological dimensions but acknowledge the complex semantics of the materials and their emotional-affective implications. By investigating the interactions of mining and environmental transformations, metallurgy and monetary practices the project teases out connections between fields of knowledge, and areas of action, that are widely discussed in economic history, history of economic thought, history of science and environmental history but rarely in way that makes these connections visible.

Affiliations:

• DFG-Network Project: external pageThe Promise of Markets. New Perspectives on the Cultural-Economic History in the Early Modern Periodcall_made
• external pageWorking Group III: Knowledge and the Market: Affective Economiescall_made (Subproject of a large-scale international research project that investigates the historical roots of knowledge societies)
• external pageMaterial Practices: Earth in the Makingcall_made (Research project at the MPIWG, Berlin)