Analysis

What is 'British culture'?

02.12.2024 - By BBC Radio 4Play

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play

'What is "British Culture?” I was born in the UK and have lived here for 40 years, and yet, as a British Asian person, I am constantly told “we are not integrating”. Not integrating into what culture exactly?' Bushra Shaikh runs a charity, is a business-owner and is also a writer and commentator. When she posted this question on social media, two million people viewed it, she received thousands of replies, but no clear definition of British Culture. Some respondents mentioned the food, while others defined it by quoting literature or history. But those answers were often just lists; of meals. books, names and dates. Is "culture" a synonym for race? How can British people of colour integrate, and what does that mean? Americans put their hands on their hearts, gaze at the stars and stripes and identify with freedom, while the French look to liberty, equality, and fraternity, but is there a British equivalent? Bushra speaks to Historians, cultural commentators, as well as both the UK's newest citizens, and people who can trace their British family roots back hundreds of years, to try to find out what British culture means to them. Presenter: Bushra Shaikh

Producers: Ravi Naik and Sean Johnson

Editor: Clare Fordham. Contributors:

Robert Colls, emeritus professor of history at De Montfort University

Lionel Shriver, novelist and journalist

Pen Vogler, food historian and writer

Dr Bernard Trafford, retired headteacher and former member of the citizenship advisory group

Anton Dani, Conservative councillor and former mayor of Boston

Robert Owen, Vice Lord Lieutenant of Merseyside

Professor Alice Foucart, Principal Investigator, Psycholinguistics, Universidad Nebrija, Madrid

Dr Tessa Dunlop, historian and broadcaster

Keith Richardson, Author

More episodes from Analysis