Paper short abstract:

This paper reflects on the evolution of an environmental oral history project that is working with individuals, community groups and schools to investigate everyday experiences of extreme heat in London in the second half of the twentieth century.

Paper long abstract:

Seasonal hot weather, rising global temperatures and the urban heat island effect all present challenges for city dwellers and their surroundings. However, while Londoners have long struggled with the inequitable impacts of high temperatures, we know very little about how they have experienced and thought about extreme heat from an everyday perspective, nor how they have sought to cope with its consequences. To address this, the environmental oral history work strand of the Melting Metropolis project interrogates historical attempts to secure physical and emotional health in Somers Town, London.

This paper reflects on the opportunities and challenges involved in undertaking such a project and outlines progress to date. Drawing on Williams and Riley (2020), it considers how environmental oral history methods and testimony can be constructive in interrogating the practices, meanings and power relations inherent in normative discourses of urban heat, that are usually premised on notions of individual resilience. Through reflections on the organisation and experience of interviews, workshops and an intergenerational oral history project, the paper further explores the prospects of this approach.

Oral history has been underutilised in the field of environmental history and this paper provisionally points to its value in creating more inclusive narratives around the impacts of extreme urban heat. The complex, varied experiences of high temperatures and health highlight the extent to which individuals and communities are affected differently and unequally, which in turn demands more nuanced responses if we are to create equitable and just climate change mitigation.