Paper short abstract:

The modern environmental movement gained momentum globally in the 1970s. This presentation asks how Finnish children’s environmental awakening of this decade can be understood by using a collective biographical approach.

Paper long abstract:

The modern environmental movement was born in the 1970s when people’s critical consciousness was globally awakened. Protest events such as the first Earth Day organised in The U.S. in 1970 allowed millions of people to voice their concerns of the pollution of Earth and the mass media transnationally circulated information about these protests. Simultaneously, important political milestones added to the attention on environmental issues when the European Year for Environmentalism was celebrated in 1970 and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was established in 1972, to mention just a few examples.

The environmental awareness of the 1970s did not only affect adults but also children who were provided with information on environmental issues. As an example, environmental education was implemented in school curriculums in Finland and the Finnish Broadcasting Company included educational elements of environmental issues in their children’s programmes. In this presentation, I will ask how the environmental ethos influenced Finnish children’s lived experiences of their relation with the nature during the 1970s. How will our understanding of the history of the modern environmental movement change when we approach it from the perspective of children?

Methodologically the presentation relies on a collective biographical approach by combining biographical details from several research subjects. Additionally, the presentation discusses how oral history interviews and contemporary sources such as media texts and organisational archives can be used side-by-side when writing a collective biography of children’s experiences of environmental activism in the 1970s.