Research from scratch

The book I’m writing has emerged over the course of five years. In addition to the introductory and final chapter, it will consist of six empirical chapters. Most of these are based on studies I have already carried out and published. The primary purpose of my book is to collect the different studies and give me room to make four to five significant points. In addition, I want to make my research available to more people through the book format. 

There are a number of advantages associated with this approach of going from journal articles to books. Not least the fact that I can write the actual book relatively quickly. Some chapters only require a slight revision of previous works. The fourth chapter, which I wrote before the summer vacation, was an example of this. This chapter is called “Två kvinnliga pionjärer” (Two Female Pioneers) and focuses on how journalist Barbro Soller and historian Birgitta Odén at the same time – but in different ways – developed a strong environmentalist commitment. This resulted in their lives and careers changing course. Here, my work primarily concerned translating my own text from English into Swedish (Soller) and making a journal article shorter (Odén). 

However, the chapter I’m currently working on, the fifth, has a completely different character. It is, to refer to Martin Ericsson, “research from scratch.” This chapter is based on Hans Palmstierna’s personal archives and is mainly based on letters. In the late fall of 1967, Palmstierna became Sweden’s first truly influential environmentalist – something highly noticeable in the correspondence that has survived. From this time until his death in 1975, a lot of people wrote letters to him. I may thus use these letters to get insights into the chain reaction of activity initiated by the breakthrough of environmental issues in Swedish society. Analyzing this material is incredibly fascinating. 

The material includes letters from students, bankers, high school teachers and priests. It includes communists and conservatives, centrists and liberals. Politically, however, it is dominated by social democrats. Palmstierna was an active party member, and in 1967–1968, he was given increasingly important tasks. For instance, he belonged to the group preparing the Social Democrats’ first environmental policy program. In March 1968, he left the Karolinska Institute to work at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Six months later, he joined the Environmental Advisory Council. 

Even more interesting, however, is to see how he was invited to public television and the various branches of the labor movement. Most important in this context was the fact that in December 1967, the cooperative insurance company Folksam (the largest insurance company in Sweden at the time) decided to launch the first national environmental campaign: “Front mot miljöförstöringen” (Front against Environmental Degradation). Hans Palmstierna prepared the study material, recorded videos and designed the campaign. The basic idea was to get young people involved in environmental issues so that they would then exert pressure on decision-makers. The campaign culminated in the spring of 1969, when school students throughout Sweden organized public hearings with local politicians and business leaders. 

At this time, there was no “environmental movement” in the current sense of the word. There was no Greenpeace, no Friends of the Earth, and the term “Green Wave” had yet to be coined. But people’s involvement in relation to the environment was on the rise and it was channeled – as shown by the Folksam campaign – through established social organizations. The letter material also shows that student associations adopted a prominent role. At the Chalmers University of Technology, a group of architectural students created the exhibition “Än sen då” (So What?). It was launched in the spring of 1968 after which it toured the country. Other students signed up as volunteers in the new popular movement beginning to take shape. None of this existed in the spring of 1967. 

Exactly how this chapter will turn out remains to be seen. I have given myself some 25 pages and outlined a rough structure that is essentially chronological. The latter aspect is important to me since one of my points with this chapter is to highlight chain reactions. In other words, showing how someone’s actions led others to do something, which, in turn, had further consequences. To some extent, I also want to show how the “reaction time” differed between different organizations and groups. 

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that this represents a fun and creative phase of the research and writing process. I here find a sense of productive uncertainty not found in chapters where the bulk of my work was done a long time ago. Obviously, I also find lots of new leads that I’m curious to follow up. What, for example, is hidden in the Folksam archives? How difficult would it be to get in contact with people involved in hearings in the spring of 1969? What is preserved in school basements? Such as at Porthälla in Partille, which in April 1968 organized an environmental week ending with Hans Palmstierna coming to give a presentation. And what can we find out about the hundreds of study circles organized by adult education associations ABF, Vuxenskolan and others? 

There is certainly no shortage of ideas. But if I am to finish this book, further research will have to wait. “Get a plan and stick to it,” as the saying goes. But it’s certainly tempting to turn over just another stone.

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