Developing cosmopolitanism hrough intercultural mediation activities: An after-school digital storytelling project in Catalonia

Introduction

Transnational mobility has become an integral part of human life and has had a significant impact on the linguistic and cultural diversity of schools and society, presenting new challenges for language education (Erling & Moore, 2021). Approaches to language teaching and learning have also shifted, and intercultural dimensions, including the development of learners as intercultural mediators, are considered of paramount importance (Busch, 2022; Zarate, 2004).

Intercultural mediation, I argue, implies an ethical engagement with linguistically and culturally diverse people. It includes an acknowledgment of the value of all languages and cultures and an open attitude toward the possibilities that result from cross-linguistic and cross-cultural contact (Liddicoat & Derivry-Plard, 2021). Empathy, hospitality, and respect for “otherness” are key components of intercultural mediation (Stathopoulou, 2015, p. 24). These ideas are compatible with the concept of cosmopolitanism, which is a key theoretical construct in the research presented in this article.

Cosmopolitanism refers to an ethical stance emphasizing individuals’ shared responsibilities and obligations as global citizens towards one another, including dispositions of respect for cultural diversity, openness, care, curiosity, hospitality, and empathy towards others in intercultural relationships (Appiah, 2006; Hawkins, 2014, 2018; Nussbaum, 1997; Robbins & Horta, 2017; among others). Little existing literature on intercultural mediation in the field of language and cultural education has explicitly incorporated the concept of cosmopolitanism or demonstrated how cosmopolitanism might be enacted and enabled by youth by studying their interactions at a micro level.

In responding to these two gaps, in this article, I interpret intercultural mediation activities emerging in the audiovisual recording of a natural interaction collected using ethnographic methods at an after-school digital storytelling project site in the province of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain). Specifically, I zoom in on a conversation between a group of teenagers as they watch a digital story shared by youth from a site in Uganda which is part of the same project. In the interaction, a young girl of Ghanaian origin mobilizes her previous life experience-which I refer to in terms of funds of knowledge, following Moll, et al. (1992)-to mediate the cultural nuances of the digital story content for her peers. The objectives of this article are 1) to explore how this mobilization of funds of knowledge for intercultural mediation takes places and 2) to investigate how cosmopolitanism is developed during the mediation process. I further explore how intercultural mediation activity is collaboratively constructed across modes, languages, and material objects.

In the following section of the article, I discuss the theoretical foundations of the study, concentrating on the concepts of cultural mediation, cosmopolitanism, and funds of knowledge. The research methods deployed for the present study are then described. The majority of the article is devoted to data analysis, after which a discussion will be offered with theoretical and practical implications.

Theoretical Framework

This study is founded on three interrelated concepts: intercultural mediation, cosmopolitanism, and funds of knowledge. Together, these theories provide a comprehensive lens through which to explore and analyze the complex dynamics of intercultural interaction, global citizenship, and culturally grounded learning. This section will delve into each theory, detailing its practical applications, and elucidating their interconnectedness and relevance to the research inquiry.

Method

The study reported on in this article was conducted as part of a broader ethnographically informed action/activist research project entitled “Inclusive epistemologies and practices of out-of-school English learning (IEP!)” (see Moore & Vallejo, 2021). One of the research sites in IEP! was an after-school digital storytelling project, part of the Global StoryBridges (GSB) educational network (led by professor Margaret R. Hawkins at the University of Wisconsin-Madison). GSB links young people from different global sites who create digital stories of their lives and communities. These videos, which utilize English as a lingua franca, are shared and discussed through a dedicated website. It is a youth-led project designed to develop participants’ communication skills in English, their digital skills, and their critical cosmopolitanism (Hawkins, 2014). All the project sites serve communities facing socioeconomic disadvantage. It is important to note that such “disadvantage” is relative to the local contexts; for example, access to mobile phones or computers-a topic which comes up in the interaction studied in this article-is taken for granted by the Barcelona youth, while such access may not be universal for their global peers. Each site is equipped with Macbooks and video cameras provided by the project coordinator.

The digital storytelling activity at the site in Barcelona ran once a week for two hours at a youth center. There were 14 years olds involved in the project. The site was overseen by four adult facilitators and one student volunteer, who aimed to support the youths’ work without controlling it.

The educational setting was complex, characterized by complicated relationships, inconsistent attendance, wavering interest, and different levels of English among the youth. Disruptive behavior by some participants and internal group tensions were also prevalent, making it challenging to initiate and maintain interactions in English. To preserve the identity of the participants, in the transcripts included in the analysis, the names of people are replaced by pseudonyms, with the exception of the adult facilitators-Emilee and Claudia-whose real names are used with their permission. Miaomiao, the author of this article, is one of the adult facilitators participating in the session. Nonetheless, she is not verbally involved in the interaction analyzed in this article.

The participants have a variety of lingua-cultural backgrounds. Nanyamka (pseudonym) was born in Ghana, West Africa, where she was educated in an English-medium school before migrating to Barcelona at the age of eight. Many of her relatives, including her mother and grandparents, remain in Ghana. The other youth participants involved in the interaction were born in Catalonia though some have families from other regions of Spain. Claudia and Emilee are originally from other parts of the world (Chile and Australia) and had lived in Catalonia for many years at the time the research was conducted.

All the youth participants are proficient in both Spanish and Catalan and are learning English. Nanyamka, however, speaks English fluently, and she often spontaneously takes on the role of linguistic mediator in the sessions (see Zhang & Llompart, 2021, for an analysis of this). In this article, I focus on how she engages in intercultural mediation, drawing on her lived experiences in Ghana during her childhood.

The research project is qualitative in nature, guided by principles of ethnography to collect different data sources (mainly fieldnotes and audiovisual recordings) and of conversational analysis for examination, namely by attending to the sequential order and micro-details of interactional turns and tracing the evidence of analytical arguments within those turns. Before starting this research, informed consent was duly signed by the parents or legal guardians of all youth participants following the procedures and models approved by the IRB of the coordinating university. The data I analyze in this article is a video-recorded interaction from one of the early sessions in the after-school digital storytelling activity in Barcelona. The video has been transcribed using basic conversation analysis conventions (Jefferson, 2004), and I account for multimodal interactional features (e.g., gaze, facial expression, posture, and gesture) as well as a non-human actor (i.e., a laptop computer) in the transcripts by adding comments and/or screenshots when most relevant for the analysis.

Before turning to the analysis, I would like to reflect on my positionality in the research. As mentioned, I assumed a dual role as researcher and facilitator, actively participating in activities with the participants and offering support and assistance. As a researcher from China, my cultural background is markedly distinct from the backgrounds of the youth involved and my co-researchers. This discrepancy may give rise to certain cultural barriers in participating at the site and in interpreting the data while also allowing a unique perspective. I endeavor to uphold sensitivity and respect towards the participants and their viewpoints while remaining cognizant of the influence of my own cultural values and beliefs on the research outcomes and evading the introduction of cultural biases during the research process. In some cases, transglobal or even local interactions may lead to controversy or perpetuate unfair positions. In such situations, my duty is to manage and mediate contentious issues and discussions following the guidelines laid out by Ho et al. (2017) and Noddings and Brooks (2017). Additionally, I draw attention to the appropriateness and respectfulness of the messages conveyed by the youth to their audience. This study adopts qualitative methods and lenses for data collection and analysis, which inherently encompass a certain degree of subjectivity. To ensure the reliability of the research results, I engaged in reflection during the data collection and analysis process and anchor my arguments in the evidence available in the data.

Results

In the sequences of interaction represented in the transcripts, some of the youth at the site in Barcelona decided to re-view a video shared the previous year by youth in Uganda via the Global Storybridges platform. Some of the youth at the Ugandan and Barcelona sites had already discussed this video the previous year using the asynchronous chat facility integrated into the platform. Consequently, a portion of the youth in Barcelona thus display a lack of interest in watching the video again. Building on this context, my focus is on the local interaction at the Barcelona site during the re-viewing. Before analyzing the local interaction, I describe the scenes in the video being watched by the Barcelona youth, as they are important for the interpretation of the data analyzed, referring to the analysis presented by Hawkins (2020).

The digital story, entitled “Domestic Work” was posted by the Ugandan youth on the Global Storybridges online platform in May 2017-one year earlier than the interaction analyzed in this article. As Hawkins (2020) describes it, the whole video is approximately 5 minutes long, and it opens with the image of a world map. It then transitions to the next shot, showing a school, accompanied by the sound of the school bell. The third shot, captioned “Heading Home After Classes 3:00 pm,” shows a group of Ugandan youth wearing white uniforms, coming out of school, and speaking Lugbara with each other on their way home. The video then transitions to the next scene with the caption “Time for Domestic Work After Classes” showing two girls (with shaved hair) leaving their house carrying jerrycans (large yellow plastic containers with side handles) to a muddy stream. Then, a new scene appears, captioned “The Two Ladies Are In The Valley Fetching Water.” The two girls sink the jerrycans into the stream and fill them with water. They twist a rag into rings, put them on their heads, then balance the jerrycans on top of the fabric, and carry them home without using their hands. As they near home, music starts and the video transitions to a new shot. The two girls collect some dirt using a hoe, mix it with cow dung, soil, and water in a tub, then knead it with their hands into smooth mud. The caption says, “Smearing Their Parent’s room: Using the Manure of Cow Dung, Soil and Water.” They bring the tub inside the cottage and smear the floor using their hands. The next scene appears with the caption “The Three Boys Washing Utensils.” Three boys wash dishes, a kettle, and a pot outside on the ground and dry them on a wooden rack. Then, they take a plastic basin and a jerrycan of water to the farm and give water to cows.

The final part of the video lasts 1 minute and 23 seconds, all with background music, with the caption “The Four Boys are Pounding Cassava in the Traditional Way.” We see three boys enter a hut, and bring a metal pan, a mortar, a straw basket, and dried cassava outdoors, then they pound the cassava into cassava flour and sift it using the basket. The closing shot is a scrolling text, entitled “Acknowledgement,” expressing their appreciation of and thanks to God, to the project leaders, and to the video viewers.

It is important to note that in response to the video the previous year, the Barcelona youth created and posted a 49-second video titled “Trying to Imitate the Ugandan Friends’ Skills.” In their response video, they tried to carry water bottles on their heads and threw them into air, wasting water as they did so. In their words, “We throw the bottles because it’s funny and it’s a trend.” In their quite frivolous response, the Barcelona youth displayed, therefore, very limited understanding of and respect for the lives and customs of their Ugandan counterparts (see Hawkins, 2020 for a detailed analysis).

When re-viewing the video in the interaction studied in this article, the youth from the Barcelona site gradually display interest and curiosity but still lack the knowledge to understand the video content fully, as many of the scenes depicting the Ugandan youths’ lives in the video remain completely unfamiliar to them. Nanyamka takes on the role of intercultural mediator to interpret the cultural phenomena in the video for her peers, mobilizing her funds of knowledge (i.e., her previous life experiences in Ghana). I argue that the Catalan youths’ cosmopolitanism is enacted and enabled through Nanyamka’s mediation work.

The participants named in the transcription and who are visible in the screenshot from the video recording (Figure 1) are, from left to right, NAI: Naiara (pseudonym, youth participant); NAN: Nanyamka (pseudonym, youth participant); DAN: Daniel (pseudonym, youth part-icipant); JUL: Julián (pseudonym, youth participant); SAR: Sara (pseudonym, youth participant); EMI: Emilee (a facilitator/researcher). CLA: Claudia (a facilitator/researcher) also participates in the interaction but is not in the camera view. Miaomiao (a facilitator/researcher/author of this article) is also present but does not verbally participate in this interaction.

Extract 1 begins with Nanyamka, in line 1, trying to draw her peers’ attention to the video and silence them, both verbally (“pst pst pst”) and non-verbally (placing her index finger on her mouth). the analysis continues after Extract 1.

Extract 1

38 depende de qué tamaño a veces puede [ser pequeño o más. (.) te lo ( ) no it is not so that it does not hurt but so that it can hold on too. (.) you make it round (.) and does- it depends on what size sometimes it can [be small or smaller. (.) you ( ) [put it (.) or it can be even flat (.) or even: or tsk. uh how do you say? 40 NAI: [((looks at NAN))

41 DAN: [((turns around and look at the computer))

42 JUL: al igual llevo algo en la cabeza yo se me cae nen.

like i have something on my head i drop it baby.

43 NAN: pues es para que sujete.

well it’s for you to hold.

44 NAI: ((pointing at the computer screen)) tu vivías así?

did you live like this?

45 NAN: no. (.) vivía en una casa a ver: era eso. (.) era igual o peor que esa.

no. (.) lived in a house let’s see: it was that. (.) it was the same or worse than that.

46 ((music from the computer))

47 NAN: ((swinging head to the rhythm of the music)) uh céline dion.

While watching the video, Sara begins recalling (Line 3) the asynchronous chat conversation with the Ugandan youth the previous year, when the digital story was originally shared, opening a sequence that lasts until Line 9 in which the Barcelona youth remember the questions exchanged by the two groups about their hairstyles and headdresses at the time. In Line 11, reacting to the image of the Ugandan students in uniform on the screen, NAN yamka recalls her time at school in Ghana wearing a school uniform and makes an exaggerated evaluation -“madre mía que feo el uniforme” (“oh my goodness how ugly was it”). She thereby positions herself as somebody with lived experience of using a cultural feature reflected in the video.

The viewing of the video continues. Naiara asks Namyanka, who is thereby positioned as a cultural expert, whether the Ugandan youth appearing on the screen, who have shaved heads, are girls (Lines 13 and 15). NAN yamka confirms with a “sí” (“yes”) in Lines 14 and 16, then she asks if Naiara would like to see a photo from her childhood, in which she presumably has a similar haircut to the girls on the screen. She looks for a picture on her mobile phone. Naiara says she would like to see the photo but also starts that she thinks she has seen it before.

In Lines 19-20, in reaction the scene in the video in which girls carry water on their heads, Nanyamka explains that she did similar work with her mother. Sara, in Line 21, again refers to the asynchronous chat with the Ugandan youth the previous year, in which the Catalan youth asked stereotypical questions about Africa, including whether there were lions. Following a comment which is not entirely audible, in Lines 23-24 Nanyamka points at the computer screen and places her hand on her head trying to explain to her Barcelona peers how to do the work done by the Ugandan youth in the video. After this, Naiara questions what device the Ugandan youth would have used to make their film (Line 25), displaying another stereotypical understanding of Africans as being poor as evidenced also in later turns (Lines 30 and 31). In Line 26, Nanyamka does not seem to have heard Naiara’s question about how the Ugandan youth had recorded, as she continues with her explanation of how water is carried, accompanying it with embodied movements (gestures of twisting a rag in a circle, Lines 26 and 27). Sara does notice Naiara’s question, however, and repeats it in overlap, inquiring whether the Ugandan youth use a camera to record (Lines 28-29). Thus, Naiara and Sara’s focus and interest are seemingly not the video’s content, but other aspects related to their stereotypical understanding of Uganda as being a poor African nation where people cannot access technology. In the following line, Nanyamka responds by affirming that “son pobres pero no tanto” (“they are poor but not that much”), followed by a mitigating laugh, possibly challenging her peers’ understanding that the Ugandan youth are too poor to have access to video recording devices. After a comment from Naiara which is not entirely understandable in Line 31, but in which she presumably justifies her understanding that Ugandans are relatively poor, Nanyamka clarifies that Ugandans are not as poor as they were before (“ya tanto no”, “now so much no”, Line 32). She then, refocuses and continues her explanation about carrying water (Lines 32-33).

In Line 35, Julián, who has not spoken thus far and who is concentrating on watching the video, asks Nanyamka if the rag the girls on the screen are twisting is used to prevent pain. In response to the question, Nanyamka, in Lines 36-37, states that the rag is also used to help with balance, and she mobilizes embodied actions (i.e., gestures showing how to make use of the rag, Figure 5), alongside a detailed description of the rag, to help her peers better understand the function and the production method of this tool, which also catches both Naiara and Daniel’s attention (Lines 40-41). Julián then comments that he would not be able to carry anything on his head like the Uganda youth do (Line 42) and Nanyamka, in the next line, emphasizes that the twisted rag is beneficial for holding what is being carried in place.

The Barcelona youth keep watching the digital story, and Naiara points at the computer screen, asking Nanyamka if she used to live in a similar house to the people in the video (“tu vivías así?”; “did you live like this?”, Line 44). This question might be considered either a face-threatening or hurtful one for Nanyamka, or a display of Naiara’s interest in Nanyamka’s life in Ghana. Nanyamka appears to interpret it in terms of the latter, as evidenced by her straightforward response that she lived in a house that was “igual o peor que esa” (“the same or worse than that,” Line 45). Indeed, Naiara and Nanyamka are close friends, and their inquiries and responses need to be interpreted within a frame of friendship (Kromidas, 2011). In Line 46, Nanyamka changes the topic, commenting on the music playing in the video, and sways her head to the rhythm.

Extract 2 is the continuation of Extract 1. The analysis follows the extract.

Extract 2

48 ((all participants are looking at the computer screen))

49 NAI: ((pointing at the computer screen, looking at NAN)) tienen (.) tienen: doce años?

are they (.) are they: twelve years old?

50 (2)

51 NAN: ((points at the computer screen)) éste tiene cara de ser doce.(2) y ese tendría

52 unos [quince o dieciséis.

This one has the face of being twelve years old. (2) and that one would probably be [fifteen or sixteen years old.

53 SAR: [me parecen muy altos ((points at the computer screen)) no? ese parece

54 ( ) igual.

[they look very tall right? that looks the same ( ).

55 NAN: este tendrá unos catorce quince eh? (.) estos tienen catorce ( )

this one must be about fourteen or fifteen years old eh? (.) these are fourteen ( )

56 (4)

57 NAI: ((points at the computer screen)) y esta también?

and this one too?

58 NAN: puede ser no sé (.) a lo mejor es el hermano mayor quien le está ayudando o

59 algo.

maybe i don’t know (.) he looks like a big brother who is helping something.

60 SAR: bueno ( )

well ( )

61 NAI: oye qué bien actúa no? [en plan: no hay ninguna cámara.

look here how well he acts right? [like: there is no camera.

62 NAN: [((laughs)) (3) ((singing)) la vaca lola tiene cabeza y

63 [tiene cola y hace mú:

lola the cow has a head and [has a tail and says moo:

64 [((the moo of a cow is heard from the video))

65 (25)

66 NAN: en verdad aunque parezca: puede parecer aburrido pero si estás así tío no sé te lo

67 pasas bien.

in reality although it seems: it may seem boring but if you are like this man i don’t know you have a good time.

68 ((music from the computer))

69 JUL: ( )

70 nan: ( ) porque no lo están pensando en el móvil en este [tiempo por eso.

( )because they are not thinking about the mobile phone at this [time that’s why.

71 SAR: [((nods head)) ya.

[yeah.

Like in Extract 1, as they continue to view the video, the young audience from Barcelona show their curiosity, voice different questions and opinions, and position Nanyamka as cultural expert. The first inquiry is initiated by Naiara in Line 49, who points at the computer screen, asking Nanyamka if the young people seen in the video are 12 years old. This is followed by a discussion around the topic of the Ugandan youths’ age that lasts until Line 60. In Lines 51-52, Nanyamka responds to Naiara with her own estimates of the youths’ age. Sara, in the following line, offers her viewpoint that the Ugandan youth are taller than she would expect for the ages suggested, which prompts further estimations from Nanyamka in Line 55. After a long pause (4 seconds) in Line 57, Naiara again seeks confirmation from Nanyamka about the age of one of the youth, and Nanyamka provides her appraisal in the following lines. In Line 61, Naiara evaluates what she interprets as the performance of one of the youth in the video, claiming “oye qué bien actúa no? en plan no hay ninguna cámara” (“look here how well he acts right? like there is no camera”), which draws Nanyamka’s laughter in Line 62. Naiara’s comment suggests how far from her understanding of real life the scenes in the video are for her; through her utterance, she categorizes the young person on the screen as an actor rather than a similarly aged teenager in Uganda doing everyday chores.

Following her laughter in Line 62, in reaction to images of cows on the screen, Nanyamka sings the Spanish children’s song La vaca Lola (Lola the cow). A long silence (25 seconds) follows (Line 65), during which the teenagers are absorbed in viewing the video, keeping their eyes focused on the computer screen. In Lines 66-67, Nanyamka shares her belief that doing the types of domestic work shown in the video is enjoyable, although it might seem boring to her peers. Her use of the second person singular (“si estás así tío no sé te lo pasas bien”; “if you are like this man I don’t know you have a good time,” Lines 66-67) is interesting and is arguably indexical of her own experience of scenes similar to those in the video. She then shares her reasoning, claiming that the Ugandan youth are not thinking about mobile phones (Line 70), possibly making a comparative reference to how young people in Barcelona spend much of their time. This comment might also link back to her peers’ inquiries in Extract 1 about whether the Ugandan youth had access to video recording devices. Sara verbally agrees with Nanyamka with a “ya” (“yeah,” Line 71) and by nodding her head in agreement.

Thus, in Extract 2, it is interesting to note how the potentially negative assessments of young people’s life in Uganda that emerged in Extract 1 (i.e., lack of access to recording devices, poor housing) are re-framed to some degree, thanks to Nanyamka’s positive appraisal of the domestic work in the video by the Ugandan youth, based on her previous life experiences.

In Extract 3, which takes place several seconds after Extract 2, the positive evaluation of Ugandan life is developed further. The analysis again follows the extract.

Extract 3

72 NAN: me duele la puta espalda.

my fucking back hurts.

73 (1.5)

74 NAI: ((looking away from screen)) yo no lo quiero ver (.) ah sí sí.

i don’t want to watch it (.) ah yes yes.

75 NAN: [ah eso lo hacía me obligaban a hacerlo.

ah that i did they made me do it.

76 NAI: [((looks at the computer screen))

77 JUL: para qué es? ((looks at NAN))

what is that for?

78 NAN: ((gestures showing how to grind cassava into cassava flour, see Figure 6)) eso

79 era un así pero se hacía así (.) pones la olla y haces así (.) entonces tienes dos

80 opciones (.) [aguantar el palo (.) o aguantas: si aguantas lo de [abajo no puedes

81 ser un cabrón y pisar la mano porque tiene (.) una vez que es está arriba tienes

82 que poner:: tienes que ir moviéndolo (.) si no se pega.

that was like that but it was done like that(.) you put the pot and you do like this(.) then you have two options(.) [hold the stick (.) or hold: if you hold the [thing below you can’t be a bastard and step on the hand because it has (.) once it is up you have to put:: you have to move it (.) if it does not stick.

83 NAI: [((looks at NAN, listening carefully))

84 JUL: [((looks at NAN, then shifts gazes between NAN and the computer screen))

85 NAI: ((nods head)) huh.

86 NAN: sabes qué? a veces hacían bromas [sabes lo- quita la mano o te la estampoy te lo

87 estampaban y todo. ((shaking fist from top to bottom, Figure 7))

did you know? sometimes they made jokes you know what- take your hand away or i’ll stamp it on you and they stamped it and everything.

88 NAI, JUL: [((look at NAN))

89 NAI: ( )

90 NAN: no pero hacían [de bromas a lo (.) quita la mano porque: sabes? cuando está

91 arriba tiene que moverlo.(.) cuando está arriba tiene que moverlo.((shaking fist

92 from top to bottom, Figure 8))

no but they made jokes to (.) take his hand away because: you know? when it is up you have to move it. (.) when it is up you have to move it.

93 NAI: [((looks at NAN))

94 NAN: cada uno tiene que com: com- componerse?

each one has to com: com- compose themselves?

95 NAI: anda que como uno se vaya de la mano

well if someone’s hand goes astray

96 NAN: ya por eso.

yeah that’s why.

97 JUL: ( )

98 SAR: este es el segundo.

this is the second one.

99 NAN: madre mía:

oh my goodness:

100 CLA: how old NAN?

101 NAI: ( ) ahora que me gustaban ya no hay más.

( ) now that i liked them there is no more.

102 SAR: era la que cantábamos.

it was the one we sang.

103 CLA: NAN how old were you when you came here?

104 NAN: ocho.

eight.

105 CLA: you were eight?

106 NAN: ((nods head))

107 CLA: so you have a lot of memories right?

108 NAN: sí. (.) ( ) ((laughs))

yes. (.) ( )

109 EMI: have you ever been back?

110 NAN: qué?

what?

111 EMI: have you ever gone back?

112 NAN: no.

113 EMI: no? would you like to?

114 NAN: ((shrugs her shoulders)) sí. (.) por mis familiares.

yes. (.) because of my relatives.

As the video being viewed is coming to an end, the Barcelona youth appear to be tired of watching it. Nanyamka complains of a backache in Line 72, and in Line 74 Naiara looks away from the screen and verbalizes her unwillingness to continue watching the video before aligning with Nanyamka’s complaint. Interestingly, however, Nanyamka, in Line 75, reacts to the video with an “ah,” then tells her peers that she used to be asked to do the same work as the Ugandan youth are doing, drawing Naiara’s attention back to the computer screen (Line 76). In the next line, Julián addresses Nanyamka, requesting clarification: “para qué es?” (“what is that for?”). Like Extract 1, when she explained how to carry water on one’s head, Nanyamka explains to the other young people how to grind cassava into cassava flour both through bodily gestures and a detailed verbal explanation (Lines 78-82). Naiara and Julián both enact active listenership through their gaze (Lines 83 and 84), and Naiara shows understanding by nodding her head (Line 85). Once her explanation is accepted and understood, Nanyamka provides extra cultural information on the matter of grinding cassava, explaining a funny anecdote from her own experience of grinding cassava flour (Lines 85-86, 90-92, and 94). Naiara, who had previously expressed her boredom, displays her attention (Line 93) and reacts to the anecdote (Line 95). Her change of attitude towards the video is made explicit in Line 101, in which she reacts to the film’s ending: “ahora que me gustaban ya no hay más” (“now that I liked them there is no more”).

While the youth are exploring and commenting on other videos on the GSB website, two of the adult facilitators, Claudia and Emilee, who had observed the whole interactional process, join the conversation and show their interest in knowing more about Nanyamka’s life history. Claudia addresses Nanyamka in Lines 100 and 103, asking about her age when she migrated to Spain. Receiving and confirming Nanyamka’s response, she infers that Nanyamka must have plenty of memories from her childhood in Ghana (Line 107), which Nanyamka confirms (Line 108). Emilee then takes the floor to ask Nanyamka whether she has been back to Ghana (Lines 109 and 111). Receiving a negative response, proceeds to enquire about Nanyamka’s desire to return, to which Nanyamka responds that she would like to see her relatives (Line 114).

Discussion and Conclusions

The analysis presented in this article highlights how a youth participant in a transnational digital storytelling project draws on her funds of knowledge to mediate between the cultural realities of young Ugandans’ lives depicted in the video and those of her peers in Barcelona. In doing so, she also helped build a context of her own and her peers’ development of cosmopolitanism.. The detailed sequential analysis of intercultural mediation activities allows sense to be made of the participants’ behaviors as they navigated cultural representations, voiced their preconceptions, and had some of their stereotypes challenged (by Nanyamka).

The analysis has demonstrated how the cultural mediation activities are collaboratively and multimodally constructed. That is, we see how Nanyamka deploys and incorporates languages, other embodied resources (i.e., gestures representing cultural practices), her funds of knowledge, and the scenes appearing in the video to achieve successful mediation. Similarly, we see this group of young people share their questions and opinions, both positive and negative, with friendly and cooperative dispositions which support the interaction and the intercultural mediation process (Council of Europe, 2018). Nanyamka’s lived experiences in Ghana become resources for the young people to inquire into, and for her to interpret, aspects of life in Uganda/Africa, including topics relating to gender, age, housing, access to digital devices, fetching water, grinding cassava, and so on.

I argue that a collaborative, intercultural learning space is open, affording youth the opportunity to access and make sense of cultural concepts that they could not tackle as well on their own, reducing, to some extent, “the gap between two poles that are distant from or in tension with each other” (Coste & Cavalli, 2015, p. 12). Although this gap no doubt remains, comparing their responses to the Ugandan video in the extracts analyzed in this article to their response to the same video the previous year (i.e., when they made their own video titled “Trying to Imitate the Ugandan Friends’ Skills”) is revealing of the change. When re-viewing of the video, and through the intercultural mediation by Nanyamka, the young people make inquiries into and begin to develop openness and awareness regarding cultural practices other than the ones they have been socialized into.

The extracts reveal how Nanyamka and her peers’ understanding of life in Africa is different, with Nanyamka’s peers drawing on common stereotypes (e.g., about poverty) to interpret the images on the screen. However, Nanyamka’s straightforward responses depict a more positive image of life in Ghana/Uganda, challenging her peers’ perceptions. Her mediational practices, I argue, afford opportunities for her peers to reflect on aspects of their own lives (e.g., use of mobile phones). The positive impact of her mediational work for the youth’s development of a more cosmopolitan stance is evident when Naiara, in the final extract (Line 101), verbalizes a change in her perception of the Ugandan youth: “ahora que me gustaban ya no hay más” (“now that I liked them there is no more”).

The intercultural interactional context studied in this article is, however, a complex one in which a group of cultural others (i.e., the Ugandan youth) were present for the Barcelona youth through a video recording, and their lives were interpreted for most of the Barcelona youth through Nanyamka, without direct exchange. Future research in similar contexts would benefit from incorporating a more in-depth exploration of what Hawkins (2018, p. 61) refers to as the “arc of communication” in intercultural (transnational in her words) communication, considering both the intent, agency, and consciousness of the authors of cultural products (such as the video in this article) as well as the reception and negotiation of meanings. This would require, in the case of this research, bringing the voices of the Ugandan youth directly into the analysis, although this data was not available in this instance.