Research project Intoxicating Spaces,The Impact of New Intoxicants on Urban Spaces in Europe, 1600–1850

From the 17th century, emerging imperial and trading networks of people, knowledge, and goods from across the world introduced Europeans to a many ‘new intoxicants’: cocoa, coffee, opium, sugar, tea, and tobacco. In a ‘psychoactive revolution’, these substances transformed dietary and social habits, and became mainstays of modern global economies.
skiss föreställande Riksbanken i Stockholm, framför en massa människor. 1700-tal.

Södra Bancohuset i Stockholm, 1691. Erik Dahlbergh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Focusing on four European cities between c.1600 and c.1850 – Amsterdam, Hamburg, London, and Stockholm – this three-year project (2019–22) explores the impact of new intoxicants on urban public spaces, the role of urban public spaces in assimilating them into European behaviours, and the often exploitative international systems through which they were produced, trafficked, and consumed. Via events, an online exhibition, and work with schools, museums, and non-governmental organizations, the projext demonstrates how the understanding these processes offers a vital historical perspective on urgent contemporary questions surrounding drug use and abuse, addiction, migration, inclusion and exclusion within public spaces, and the place of intoxicating substances within everyday life.

For more information, visit the project's extensive own website:

https://www.intoxicatingspaces.org/

Members

  • Ulrika Torell

    Ph.D.

    Nordic History Museum, Departmen of History at Stockholm University

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