The transformation of ARBED: 1973-2001. A European business and labour history (TransARB)

The project at a glance

Start date:

01 Aug 2022
Duration in months:

48
Funding:

Luxembourg Research Fund (FNR)
Principal Investigator(s):

Machteld VENKEN

About

With economic crises, market collapses and deindustrialization in the wake of the oil crisis in 1973 in Western Europe and with transition from planned to market economy and neoliberal turn in economic policy in Central and Eastern Europe during and after 1989/91, major political, economic and social changes have taken place in the last three decades of the 20th century all around Europe. This project combines both phenomena under a common, transnational concept of transformation and postulates, that similarities in the mechanisms and dynamics of these changes can be observed beyond time periods and geographical spaces. By means of a diachronic comparison of two case studies of the steel company ARBED in Western European Luxembourg and of its subsidiary company the ”Thüringer Stahlwerke” in former East German Unterwellenborn, the project outlines similarities, differences and transnational ties of the transformation. Through an approach that combines business and labour history, archival and media sources and Oral History interviews are used to analyse and compare both the changes in corporate structure and management strategies and the experiences and everyday working practices of workers in both locations. This provides a new transnational understanding of transformation of both business and labour history. The research results and the generated data such as fragments of media and archival sources and of Oral History are also presented within a multimedia online exhibition using digital tools to comparatively visualize the transformation of ARBED in Luxembourg and in Unterwellenborn.