Latest News / July 2023
An Oral History of the Environmental Movement.
UAC’s Jeremy Iles is now working on an additional role with Royal Holloway, University of London. Jeremy is part of a team undertaking a three-year oral history of the environmental movement. Work started on the project in September 2022 and the first interviews are now underway with 10 people selected for their long-term involvement and overview of the environmental movement.
Jeremy said: “It’s a real priviledge to be part of this team at Royal Holloway, to be interviewed (for 9 hours!) as part of the project, and to be chairing the OHEM steering group on 19 July.”
This is a pioneering collaboration between long-term environmental activists Chris Church and Jeremy, academic researchers, the British Library, Royal Geographical Society and other partners.
One hundred people will be interviewed, and will include environmental campaigners, grassroots activists and social entrepreneurs, as well as radical campaigners and pioneers of major environmental groups.
The project will work closely with National Life Stories, the oral history fieldwork charity based at the British Library, to create a publicly accessible archive of high-quality, life story oral history recordings.
The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and project outputs will include a freely available book, events and teaching resources to increase public awareness of how people engage with environmental issues across the generations.
Jeremy said: “Chris Church and I had been hatching this plan for 7 six years – we think it is really important to record the real-life stories of people involved in all aspects of the movement. And it’s an exciting project for me to be involved in after working 40 years in the sector!”