9 - Transnational Cultural Exchange

Summary

While recent scholarship on radio has begun to reveal the important role played by otherwise discrete areas of the BBC, notably the Indian Section of the wartime Eastern Service (1941-1945), and the West Indian literary magazine programme: ‘Caribbean Voices’ (1944-1958), there has been less exploration of the exchanges and friendships between West Indian, African, and South Asian artists across different programmes. Equally, the pragmatic factors and power relations that often prohibited, or short-circuited, the formation of collaborative cultures at the mid-century BBC remains little understood. Drawing on little-known scripts and BBC archival records relating to a range of now well-known artists and intellectuals (including Andrew Salkey, Una Marson, Mulk Raj Anand, Cedric Dover, Peter Abrahams, David Diop, Henry Swanzy, and George Orwell), this chapter critically examines the overlaps and asymmetrical structures that characterised cross-cultural collaboration at the corporation.