Paper short abstract:

We aim at discussing the assumed contradiction between “scientific and technological internationalism” and “cultural nationalism” focusing on specific technological constructions (knowledge, practices, representations and other by-products), from the perspective of history of technology.

Paper long abstract:

Through the analysis of three case studies from the perspective of history of technology, we discuss the assumed contradiction between "scientific and technological internationalism" and "cultural nationalism" focusing on specific technological constructions (knowledge, practices, representations and other by-products).

Science and technology highly served to the symbolic and material constructions of the nation-states. This movement of state building through technology entangled both international and national dimensions.

Therefore, our argument is based on three Iberian cases illustrating different nuances of this entanglement: the case of the emergence of a "technological nationalism" within a broader cultural and political movement in Catalonia during the 1930s; and two cases on the role of technological networks in linking and delinking national and transnational spaces through telegraphs and roads in Portugal from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century.