The moving project: exploring language, migration, and identity using participatory podcasting during the COVID-19 pandemic

I make Accentricity, a podcast exploring language and identity. After releasing series 1 in 2019, I began to plan ways to take a more participatory approach to the creation of a second series, involving contributors in the production process as co-creators. The result was The Moving Project: a podcasting course and mentorship programme designed to help people tell personal stories about language, migration, and identity. Over a period of six months, the participants developed their audio-recording, editing, and digital storytelling skills. Together we created a podcast series which tells diverse and complex stories about migration, language, and identity, from a range of different geographical, social, and historical contexts. Like the first series of Accentricity, The Moving Project provides information about language to a public audience in an accessible format. However, it goes much further than the first series in centring non-academic perspectives and in developing participatory and inclusive methods for knowledge co-production.