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 | The key objective of the award was to engage the public with the history of the BBC and its broadcasting on the occasion of the centenary of the corporation. Fundamentally, this was a public engagement award. We had proposed to bring the hitherto unseen material from the BBC written and video archives to the South Asian community in Southampton. The key material we were focussed on dealt with BBC's efforts to support new South Asian immigrants in the 1960s -1970s as they settled into their new home. We worked with the South Asian community in Southampton to gather memories of the early years of settlement in UK. We used BBC shows made for the South Asian population in the 1960s to provoke the memories of those early days. The key outcomes of the grant were as follows. 1. 10 Oral history interviews of South Asian migrants and their interaction with the BBC in the 1960s-1980s. Excerpts from these interviews are now part of the BBC 100 voices project and the BBC history website features a page on the findings of the project. 2. A public exhibition at the John Hansard Gallery that included local memories of migration, material from the BBC archive and new textile art produced by the artist Abeer Kayani. This exhibition was attended by 5400 members of the public. |
| Exploitation Route | We expect that these oral histories will be of use to scholars of diaspora history and the making of immigrant Britain. The interviews illustrate an important moment in the formation of a British South Asian community in the UK. Therefore, stakeholders in heritage, museum and cultural projects that engage with ethnic minorities in the UK will be able to use the material collected and produced by the project. |
| 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 |