Launching the Identity Season

Available for over a year

Do you think about your own identity? How do you define yourself? Is it by gender, locality or nationality? These are all the questions that the BBC’s new season on Identity will be asking you. For the whole month of April 2016, the World Service is launching a new series of programmes dedicated to the theme of identity. It looks specifically at how globalisation, the exchange of ideas and information, and how the wider movement of people may be changing the way we look at ourselves. The season kicked off in the city of Oxford in the UK where the network did a live broadcast from the Oxford Literary Festival. Rajan Datar presents a behind-the-scenes look of this live two hour broadcast in which presenters, Anu Anand, Jamie Coomerasamy and Jo Fidgen held debates on leadership, gay rights and ancestry. Rebecca Stratford was the Editor on the day and explained to Rajan why this location and set of speakers were chosen. Rajan also speaks to senior commissioning editor Steve Titherington about why the theme of identity has been chosen and hears how listeners are reacting to the broadcasts so far.