Where does the ‘environment’ fit in social history? It is now nearly two decades since Stephen Mosely’s article ‘Common Ground: Integrating Social and Environmental History’ appeared in the Journal of Social History. Surveying existing explorations of the intersection of these two fields, Mosely concluded that ‘it is vital that social history now includes the important theme of human-environment relations among its research priorities.’ The environmental challenges of late capitalism have hardly receded in the intervening years. In the case of climate change, the crises have only deepened. At the same time the ‘Anthropocene’ has emerged as contested, but influential category of periodisation and analysis.

In this panel we want to explore how far social history has moved in the direction Mosley outlined. What is the present state of investigation in terms of social histories of environmental change? Our point of departure for these considerations is the question of the everyday environment, or of everyday environmentalism, which Alex Loftus identified as a key component of contemporary environmental politics and change. We seek papers that consider the issues of the energetics of everyday life; the everyday rhythms of environmental change; relationship between embodied surrounding and everyday experience and sensation, or other points of intersection between everyday life and the natural world broadly conceived.

We are strand convenors on the Social History Society’s Heritage, Environment, Spaces and Places strand and want to present at least one panel of papers at the next conference, which will be held at the Black Country Living History Museum in Dudley on 7-9 July 2025. If enough papers of sufficient quality come forward, we will seek to apply for more than one panel. Subsequently, we aim to bring these papers together as a special issue.

If you are interested in contributing, please contact Timothy Cooper (T.Cooper@exeter.ac.uk) or Henry Irving (henry.irving@leedsbeckett.ac.uk) with an outline proposal by the 9 December 2024. The deadline for abstracts will be 10 January 2025.