Make yourself at home (MY-HOME): Co-curating the South Asian community experience at Southampton
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Southampton
Department Name: Sch of Humanities
Abstract
On the 10th of October 1965, 'Make yourself at home' was screened on BBC One. A companion radio program also appeared on BBC radio. The screening of this show marked a pivotal move in the BBC's approach to immigration and had a lasting impact on its ethnic minority programming. While the show demonstrated an important shift in how the BBC saw its role in the public life of an increasingly multi-cultural U.K, the programme also marks a crucial moment in the lives of the South Asian migrants.
MY-HOME is an intergenerational public engagement project that tracks the initial reception and legacy of 'Make yourself at Home'. Through a case study of the community experience of this show among the South Asian community in Southampton we will explore how this show and others that followed it (Nayi Zindagi Naya Jeevan' and 'Gharbar') contributed to the construction of South Asian diasporic identity in the UK. The project is co-designed with the BBC to mark the centenary year of the BBC and outputs from the project will add to the corporation's collection of 100 Voices and the 'Story of US'. Through a programme of oral history interviews, participant driven workshops and a public exhibition with the John Hansard Gallery which will be co-created with our audience of first, second and third generation South Asians-the project will illustrate the long-term history of BBC's role in making immigrants at home in the city of Southampton.
As MY-HOME is an intergenerational project, we will focus on three specific age groups within the British South Asian community of the city.
First generation migrants aged 65 and above
Second generation migrants aged 35-50
Third generation migrants aged 18- 35
Engaging with this project will benefit our public audience by allowing them an opportunity to share their thoughts on BBC programming and articulate what it is that they are looking for in public broadcasting. It will allow them to record and save collective memories of early engagement with The BBC and to speak about the impediments to engaging with the BBC. As a recent 2020 Ofcom study on ethnic minority engagement with public broadcasting has illustrated, different generations South Asian are looking at BBC for reasons ranging from the need for greater belonging in British society to connecting with their other homeland. The project will allow them to articulate these needs collectively and critically.
MY-HOME is an intergenerational public engagement project that tracks the initial reception and legacy of 'Make yourself at Home'. Through a case study of the community experience of this show among the South Asian community in Southampton we will explore how this show and others that followed it (Nayi Zindagi Naya Jeevan' and 'Gharbar') contributed to the construction of South Asian diasporic identity in the UK. The project is co-designed with the BBC to mark the centenary year of the BBC and outputs from the project will add to the corporation's collection of 100 Voices and the 'Story of US'. Through a programme of oral history interviews, participant driven workshops and a public exhibition with the John Hansard Gallery which will be co-created with our audience of first, second and third generation South Asians-the project will illustrate the long-term history of BBC's role in making immigrants at home in the city of Southampton.
As MY-HOME is an intergenerational project, we will focus on three specific age groups within the British South Asian community of the city.
First generation migrants aged 65 and above
Second generation migrants aged 35-50
Third generation migrants aged 18- 35
Engaging with this project will benefit our public audience by allowing them an opportunity to share their thoughts on BBC programming and articulate what it is that they are looking for in public broadcasting. It will allow them to record and save collective memories of early engagement with The BBC and to speak about the impediments to engaging with the BBC. As a recent 2020 Ofcom study on ethnic minority engagement with public broadcasting has illustrated, different generations South Asian are looking at BBC for reasons ranging from the need for greater belonging in British society to connecting with their other homeland. The project will allow them to articulate these needs collectively and critically.
| Title | Textile art on South Asian experiences of migration. |
| Description | Artist Abeer Kayani studied historic BBC archives analysing the language and lifestyle barriers faced by the South Asian immigrant community of Southampton. These barriers were represented through a series of experimental hand illustrated, screen-printed textile artworks. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | The artwork formed part of an exhibition at the John Hansard Gallery, Southampton. The exhibition ran from the 17th of November 2022 to the 12th of February 2023 and the gallery recorded the number of visitors as 5400 over this period. The visitors left comments about how these art pieces made them think about the early experiences of migrants from the 1960s and the present. |
| Description | As the grant was primarily a public engagement grant, the main achievements of the project were more focussed on engaging the public and building lasting collaborations with the local South Asian community and the local gallery professionals. The archival part of the project involved collecting documentary material from the BBC written archives pertaining to South Asian language programming from the 1960s to the 1990s. Also included in this part of the project was the collection of British South Asian television material from the BBC video archives. This material is all being now collated to be saved a DOI number for future use by scholars. The workshops and exhibition organised under the aegis of the grant has enabled us to build strong links with South Asian and Art gallery community in Southampton. This has led to new ongoing collaborations that delve deeper into the South Asian migrant experience in Southampton. We are working with the members of the Southampton art community and South Asian Women's groups in Southampton to co-create a new research project that explores the lives and work of South Asian immigrant women from the 1960s to 1990s. The ultimate objective of this project is to create a policy toolkit to enable immigrant women with limited language skills and education to create small businesses. Effectively, we would like to use oral history methods to record how South Asian migrant women were able to carve out a space for work in the market despite linguistic and educational disadvantages. To this end the AHRC grant has enable new collaborations with the city council, city art galleries and artists. |
| Exploitation Route | The outcomes of the funding can be of further use for researchers who are interested in histories of migration and local history. The art and archival material created would be of use to artists and film makers interested in exploring the early experiences of South Asian Migrants to the UK. |
| Sectors | Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://canvas-story.bbcrewind.co.uk/makeyourselfathome/ |
| Description | BBC and British South Asian childhood in the 1980s and 90s |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | This workshop explored the childhood engagement of second generation British South Asians with BBC Asian programming. We asked participants to produce memory boxes out of paper based and textual crafts to represent how they remember the familial, social, sensory, and emotional experience of Sunday mornings spent watching BBC Asian programming. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | First Generation South Asian immigrant workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | We worked with older adults (65 and above) to draw out the memories of reception of 'Make Yourself at home' and provoke a process of storytelling about community building and assimilation through their engagement with the BBC's early South Asian programming. We used creative methods like craft embroidery and collective writing to do the memory work. Art and text produced collectively in the workshop will be retained for the public exhibition. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |