Oral Histories of the Environmental Movement: Making an Activist Archive

Abstract This article considers the making of an archive of environmental activism through the life histories of 100 campaigners involved in environmental protest, projects and policy-making in the UK since the early 1970s. It explores the challenge of representing the diversity of the environmental movement during this period, the value of oral history in illuminating the experience of campaigning and the career trajectories of activists, and the wider significance of the National Life Stories model of oral history. Such national archives can provide vital resources for intergenerational conversation, new thinking and new forms of action designed to make a better world.