Open AccessMining engineers, industrial modernisation and politics in Greece, 1870-1940
Author(s) -
Leda Papastefanaki
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the historical review/the historical review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.114
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 1791-7603
pISSN - 1790-3572
DOI - 10.12681/hr.11557
Subject(s) - modernization theory , appropriation , industrialisation , politics , industrial revolution , work (physics) , political science , power (physics) , apprenticeship , social science , sociology , engineering , geography , archaeology , law , mechanical engineering , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , linguistics
The engineers who studied in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and who returned to Greece to work have been seen as bearers of scientific knowledge and the modernising effort. Actually, they were active historical agents contributing with their multiple scientific activities to the process of appropriation of science and technology and industrial modernisation in the specific historical environment. This article aims, through the study of a particular professional group of engineers, the mining engineers, to demonstrate the interaction between scientific and technical professional activities and participation in political and social affairs. For these mining engineers, the technical efficiency and economic growth that industrialisation would bring could not be dissociated from social order and a hierarchical form of social organisation. At the same time, the formation of their professional group, as well as the social organisation that they envisioned, were rooted in gendered and class relations of power.