“I Am What You Make Me. I Am Who I Am”

Abstract

The growing accessibility of digital technologies has led to an increase in media projects enabling young people to connect and communicate with international peers. These projects are often uncritically celebrated as opportunities for young people to learn something about a cultural “Other” and, in so doing, enhance their tolerance of difference, their consciousness of global issues, and their appreciation of diversity. Projects conceptualised in this way, however, risk reinforcing problematic notions of multiculturalism. This article describes the Durban Plymouth Story Exchange, a youth media project facilitated by the author. The project attempted to use the creation and exchange of audio recordings between young people in Durban, South Africa and Plymouth, UK to encourage self-reflection, self-expression and cultural learning. By putting knowledge of self rather than knowledge of the Other at the centre of this project, the author/facilitator hoped the project would avoid some of the pitfalls of conventional multiculturalism.

Keywords:

• ARROW
• audio
• cross-cultural exchange
• digital technology
• identity
• multiculturalism
• youth

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank ARROW Coordinators Mary Lange and Heather Knight for their assistance throughout the Story Exchange, including reviewing drafts of this article, and ARROW Director David Oddie for agreeing to host the project. I am also thankful for the feedback I received from Tim Prentki, Programme Director in Theatre and Media for Development at the University of Winchester, and Robert Miller. In Durban, ARROW is supported by the Department of Culture, Communication and Media Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Bechet High School. In Plymouth, it is supported by the University College Plymouth St. Mark and St. John and Stoke Damerel Community College. The Story Exchange benefited greatly from the involvement of these institutional partners. Finally, I would like to thank the participants in the Story Exchange in Durban and Plymouth for sharing something of their lives and dreams with one another and with me.

Notes

^1. See www.art-peace.co.uk for more information about ARROW.

^2. In this article, audio recordings that originated as written scripts are credited to their authors, using the author's first name. Unscripted conversations or evaluation feedback remain anonymous. With the exception of the audio self-portrait by Nkosinathi, a male Durban group member, all quotes from the project are of female participants. This disparity reflects the imbalance of female and male participants in the two ARROW groups. In total, there were twenty female participants and four male participants in the Story Exchange.

^3. This is a set of techniques popularised by the late Brazilian theatre director and facilitator, Augusto Boal (see Boal, 1992).