Visiting Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Sustainability and Environment

Visiting Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Sustainability and Environment

The British Library's Visiting Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Sustainability and Environment is a collections-based fellowship aimed at early career researchers in the arts and humanities or social sciences. It encourages the promotion and use of British Library collections in sustainability and environmental research, an expanding and urgent area of current social and cultural enquiry. The scheme is designed to: assist the Library to work in new ways to meet its environmental and sustainability goals; to develop internal and external education around sustainable research and practice; to showcase the rich potential of our collections in this area; and to help us to better understand the needs of users including broader research communities such as activists and creative practitioners. Each fellow produces a research report, detailing which collections they utilised, their findings and the additional outputs they created.

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    Smog Stories: Lived Experiences of Air Pollution in Twentieth Century Britain
    (2026-05-27)
    Davies, Kathy
    The aim of this project was to progress historical knowledge of air pollution beyond the science, politics, and policy approaches to ‘Clean Air’. The research positioned personal testimonies at the centre of this history for the first time to develop understanding of the ‘everydayness’ of poor air quality in Britain. Thinking beyond legislative developments and well recorded events like the Great London Smog 1952, this research revealed how smog, smuts, smoke, and dustroutinely intersected with experiences of work, leisure, education, health, and home. It has also given attention to the affective and bodily nature of atmospheric pollution to demonstrate the deeply personal impact of pollution on human lives. Detailed findings of this project will be published in a special issue of Social and Cultural History on ‘Everyday Environments’ in 2026.
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