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Working closely with the National Life Stories Collection at the British Library, a project team at Royal Holloway has recorded a new oral history archive life story interviews with 100 people involved in environmental protests, policies and practical action since the early 1970s to 2020, from direct actions at power stations, through parliamentary work, the Climate Act and UN agreements, to the promotion of city farms, cycle ways and community-owned wind farms. In discussion with British Library oral history lead curator Mary Stewart, Toby Butler will explore the potential of life history interviews to give insights into the lived history and development of the environmental movement, and consider some of the practical and ethical challenges of creating a major interview collection for a national archive. What is the National Life Stories collection, and what are its long-term goals? What insights can life stories, and large-scale projects of this nature, offer researchers? How significant are collections like this in the British Library’s collecting policy, and what might it offer historical geographers?

Toby Butler is Reader in Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, and PI of the AHRC-funded Oral History of the Environmental Movement project. He has previously devised collaborative oral history projects in India, the USA, Wales and England, created oral history trails with the Museum of London, London parks and local authorities and recently undertook 57 interviews with museum founders for the Mapping Museums project. He has also led BA and MA programmes in public history.

Mary Stewart is Lead Curator of Oral History at the British Library and Director of National Life Stories.


Please note that registration for this seminar will close 24 hours in advance so that the meeting link can be distributed to registered attendees.


All welcome- this seminar is free to attend, but booking is required.