Professor Dr Debora Gerstenberger from the Department of History at the University of Cologne (Iberian and Latin American Department) has been awarded a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Her project ‘Wired History. Computers, Humans, and the Making of Latin American Futures (1950s-2000s)’ (WIRED) will receive two million euros in funding over a period of five years. It examines both human-machine interactions as well as the dynamics between technology and society based on the use of computer technology in Latin America in different regional and historical contexts. The ERC Consolidator Grants support excellent researchers who can use them to set up their own independent working group and further consolidate their expertise.
The Rector of the University of Cologne, Professor Dr Joybrato Mukherjee, says: “By focussing on the human-computer relationship in the context of the Global South, the WIRED project creates a highly exciting combination of topics and an innovative research perspective. With its research profile and the Key Profile Area ‘Global South Studies’, the University of Cologne is the ideal location for this project. I would like to warmly congratulate Professor Gerstenberger on receiving the ERC grant.”
From the 1950s to the 2000s, Latin America was shaped not only by computer imports, but also by remarkable creativity, innovation, and locally developed computing projects. The WIRED project is dedicated to the question of how people and digital computers have jointly shaped different future scenarios. The guiding assumption is that the computer is not the ‘key’ to a predetermined future. Rather, computers and humans enter into complex relationships. Only the social constellations in which people and machines interact can bring about societal change.
Drawing on perspectives from the history of technology, science and technology studies, and computational linguistics, WIRED examines various pioneering initiatives – including educational programmes, statistical offices, economic investments, and programming labs – to analyse the impact of digital computing in practice. To gain new insights into the shaping of future scenarios, the research project combines interviews with contemporary actors with the analysis of rarely studied sources, including internal documents from IT departments and computer source codes.
Debora Gerstenberger was a junior professor at the Institute for Latin American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin from 2013 to 2022. She has been a professor in the Iberian and Latin American Department at the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities since 2022. Her research focuses on the (global) history of Latin America (especially Brazil), the history of the technologies of power, and computer history.
Media Contact:
Professor Dr Debora Gerstenberger
Department of History of the University of Cologne, Iberian and Latin American Department (IHILA)
+49 221 470 4150
debora.gerstenberger(at)uni-koeln(dot)de
Press and Communications Team:
Robert Hahn
+49 221 470 2396
r.hahn(at)verw.uni-koeln(dot)de
Further information:
https://erc.europa.eu/news-events/news/erc-2025-consolidator-grants-results