Radio drama, gender discourse and vernacularization in Afghanistan

Abstract

This paper explores how the New Home, New Life radio drama, produced by the BBC Afghan Education Projects Organization (BBC AEPO), integrates gender equity discourses into its production and therein vernacularizes them. It highlights the interplay between a number of internal and external dialogues that coalesce around the production’s dramatic content and cultural propriety. Analysis centres on the portrayal of a range of gendered cultural practices associated with marriage that the production’s funders identify as having negative social implications for girls and women. Examination of in-house production processes, as well as ongoing audience research engagement, reveal New Home, New Life’s representation of gender equity issues to be cautious and driven by an acute understanding that change can only be achieved if it proceeds cautiously and within a cultural frame of reference that is familiar to its listenership.