The project Mapping the geographies of early modern mining knowledge are organizing a w orkshop on the role of knowledge and mobility in the early modern Swedish state. The workshop will take place at the Department for History of Science and Ideas, and the Department of Economic History in Uppsala, on the 14-15 September 2023.

New findings have highlighted the importance of several fields of knowledge for early modern states aiming for geopolitical power, domestic control, and economic reform. Studies of intermediary actors and overlapping movements (of people, things, and ideas), have challenged traditional accounts of the state as a monolithic and territorially delineated entity. Instead, they have underlined the local and collective practices, which enabled the dissemination of knowledge and techniques, thereby also questioning established narratives of the industrial and scientific revolutions. From the seventeenth-century, the Swedish state was developing into a regional power in northern Europe with clear international ambitions. In line with this new geopolitical role, several administrative bodies of the Swedish state promoted efforts to gather knowledge, further professionalisation, and educate loyal servants. These activities were often thoroughly documented in protocols, official correspondence, and reports, collections that today offer unique possibilities for diachronic and synchronic historical research on the role of knowledge in early modern state formation.

The workshop aims to provide detailed knowledge on the role of mobility in early modern Swedish state administration. More specifically, our goal is an edited volume, written for international scholarly readers, with chapters that offer in-depth analyses of different administrative bodies, thematic studies on the role of different forms of knowledge, or broader approaches to knowledge and mobility in processes of state formation. We therefore invite scholars interested in, e.g., state organised study tours and travel writing, the development of auscultation as an educational system, state efforts to attract mobile experts, and other perspectives on state-related knowledge gathering.

Submit title and abstract (300 words) by 14 April 2023. As our intention is to work towards a collective publication, preliminary versions of the papers (5000–10000 words) will be circulated among the participants before the workshop. Submission of paper drafts is on 25 August 2023.