"Nonnatus House, Midwife Speaking": co-curating a new oral history of Call the Midwife with BBC audiences

这个项目是与英国广播公司合作开发的，旨在与观众共同制作一个特别的播客，以纪念百年纪念，阐明《呼叫助产士》的文化影响。《呼叫助产士》是英国广播公司最受关注和最著名的电视剧之一，探索了英国的医疗和社会历史。在15集的节目中，将有30个观众故事，这些故事是由节目重新讲述战后社会生活和挖掘人类从摇篮到坟墓的经历引发的。每一集将有两位观众在对话中反思并分享节目中特定故事情节的个人经历，例如堕胎合法化，同性恋合法化或沙利度胺丑闻。这可能是两个童年时代的朋友，他们经历并回忆起历史上的一个特定“时刻”，助产士亲眼目睹了避孕药的引入，一对父亲和女儿被该剧戏剧化的收养感动，祖母和孙子讨论他们在NHS中的过去和现在的角色，或者一个兄弟姐妹回忆起他们的曾祖母作为风吹一代的一部分来到英国。通过问观众“《呼叫助产士》对你来说意味着什么？”，该播客将制作全新的、多样化的故事，并在观看该剧的过程中引出无数的当地故事和代际对话。然而，该节目的主题并不局限于过去，这意味着该播客将参与有关医疗保健，福利国家和NHS的当代辩论。与观众交谈还将揭示这部剧在人们生活中的“地位”——这是数百万家庭聚集在一起观看圣诞特辑的焦点——从而利用BBC对英国广播的贡献和对媒体参与的影响。与《呼叫助产士》的码头背景相呼应，观众将从三个港口城市：利物浦、纽卡斯尔和布里斯托尔招募。这个项目提供了一个令人兴奋的机会，可以为这部备受喜爱的电视剧制作音频概要，并通过声音捕捉该剧如何以及为什么会与观众产生如此强烈的共鸣。这个项目的灵感来源于《呼叫助产士》和观众之间的特殊联系，这部剧的编剧海蒂·托马斯（Heidi Thomas, 2018）巧妙地抓住了这一点：“我经常被那些费心发邮件或写下他们的经历的人感动和谦卑，这确实让我非常谨慎地思考我们所做的故事情节可能具有挑战性，特别是关于残疾或移民的故事情节，因为我认为这个国家的新移民并不总是像他们可能受到的那样受欢迎，残疾人并不总是得到他们可能得到的或应得的支持。”所以我想，当人们写信给我说，‘是的，你的故事或你上周的那一集让我的经历有了启发’时，我真的感到很谦卑，我真的很高兴我们在讲故事的时候敢于冒险。”该播客试图挖掘观众的这种兴趣，阐明20世纪50年代和60年代生活与当今生活之间的联系和脱节，并放大那些记得并经历过故事情节的观众的声音。因此，该播客将为观众的故事和经历创造一段口述历史，以庆祝该节目在BBC成立100周年之际持续受欢迎。该项目将为文化地理学的“创造性转向”做出有价值的贡献，这将揭示新的研究对象和创新的研究方法。这种向创造性实践的转变见证了地理学家变成创造者和合作者，越来越多地沉浸在文化地理学的实践中，而不仅仅是分析。尽管人们对声音地理学的兴趣日益浓厚，但视觉和文本媒体和方法仍然盖过了听觉。通过共同制作播客，该项目将在最新的“创意转向”中突出音频和聆听方法。

This project, developed in partnership with the BBC, aims to co-produce with audiences a special podcast for the centenary that illuminates the cultural impact of Call the Midwife, one of the BBC's most watched and celebrated dramas which explores Britain's medical and social history. Over fifteen episodes, the podcast will feature thirty audience stories sparked by the show's re-telling of post-war community life and excavation of human experience from the cradle to the grave. Each episode will feature two viewers in conversation who reflect on and share personal experiences of a particular storyline from the show, such as the legalisation of abortion, decriminalisation of homosexuality, or Thalidomide scandal. This might be two childhood friends who lived through and reminisce about a particular 'moment' in history, midwives who witnessed firsthand the introduction of the contraceptive pill, a father and daughter moved by the show's dramatisation of adoption, a grandmother and grandson who discuss their past and present roles in the NHS, or a brother and sister who recall their great aunt's arrival in Britain as part of the Windrush generation. By asking audiences 'what does Call the Midwife mean to you?', the podcast will produce new and diverse storytelling, and elicit untold local stories and intergenerational conversations inspired by watching the drama. The show's subject matter is not, however, confined to the past meaning the podcast will engage in contemporary debates around healthcare, the welfare state, and the NHS. Speaking with audiences will also reveal the show's 'place' in people's lives - a focal point for the millions of families who gather to watch the Christmas special - thereby tapping into the BBC's contribution to British broadcasting and impact on media engagement. Mirroring Call the Midwife's dockland setting, viewers will be recruited from three port cities: Liverpool, Newcastle, and Bristol. This project offers an exciting opportunity to create an audio compendium to the much-loved show and capture in sound how and why the drama resonates so strongly with audiences. The inspiration for this project lies in the special connection between Call the Midwife and its audiences, which is captured neatly by series writer, Heidi Thomas (2018): "I am constantly touched and humbled by people bothering to email or write about their experiences, and it does make me think with great care about storylines that we do that might be challenging, particularly storylines around disability or immigration, because I think newcomers to this country aren't always made as welcome as they might be and disabled people don't always get the support that they might receive or that they deserve. And so I think when people write to me saying, 'Yes, your stories or your episode of last week has shone a light on my experience', I just feel really humbled by it and I'm really pleased that we stick our necks out the way we do with our storytelling". The podcast seeks to tap into this audience interest, illuminate the connections and disjunctures between life in the 1950s and 60s, and the present day, and amplify the voices of viewers who remember and have lived through its storylines. The podcast will therefore create an oral history of viewers' stories and experiences in celebration of the show's enduring popularity for the BBC's centenary. The project will make a valuable contribution to the 'creative turn' in cultural geography, which is revealing new objects of study and innovative ways of researching them. This shift towards creative practices is witnessing geographers turn creators and collaborators, increasingly immersed in doing, rather than simply analysing, cultural geographies. Despite growing interest in sonic geographies, visual and textual media and methods continue to overshadow the aural. By co-producing a podcast, this project will foreground audio and methods of listening within the latest 'creative turn'.