Observing Effective Cultural Capabilities And Safe Spaces In A Multimedia Scenario

Background

Humans have evolved with time and have been able to realize the worth of their existence. The changing environment allows us to interact with various people belonging from different communities, and ethnic background. The main aim of the report is to understand the concept of safe space and cultural capability and to review its necessity in creating a culturally diverse space for every individual.

The report will be subdivided in to several sections and will describe in detail the concepts in a hierarchical fashion. The report will also analyse a multimedia clip to understand the situation and the presence of safe spaces in day to day scenarios. Thereafter the report will provide recommendations to improve the safety of the space where necessary or will suggest ways to develop an environment into a safe space. The concept of cultural capability will also be discussed in the report and any suggestions if required would be made in the recommendation section. The report will also look into how these parameters mould an individual into being culturally competent.

1.1   Background

The paper revolves around cultural capability and safe spaces. While defining these terms it should be noted that the concept of cultural capability are very much in tune with cultural competence, and cultural intelligence. Cultural capabilities is referred to the set of skills, knowledge, the belief systems, and the behaviour of individuals with respect to their surroundings and are used to formulate a plan or course of action to deliver services that are culturally unbiased and does not reflect a certain community are termed as cultural capabilities.

It is the capacity to develop and modify heterogeneous environment around them to provide equal scope of growth and development for all and to foster the sense of equality among individuals from diverse social and cultural backgrounds.  The concept of space has developed from the physical space where there is absolute freedom for an individual to express him or herself without being judged from the conservativeness of the society. The existence of safe space is generally evident in various academic institutions and work spaces that have been marked as a safe space (Brislin et al., 2006).

1.2 Aim of the report

The major aim of the report is to understand the concept of safe space with respect to cultural capability. The report will analyse an audio-visual sample and try to evaluate the situation in the scenario from the perspective of cultural capability. As mentioned earlier the safe spaces are physical zones created to share freedom of thought and expression for the marginalized sections of the society. Universities in general allow zones to create safe spaces to allow their students to voice their thoughts and express their views.

The cultural capabilities of an individual allow an individual to identify and respond to safe and unsafe spaces. The cultural competence and cultural intelligence of an individual allows one to take decisions in safe and unsafe zones and enable them to cope in unsafe spaces as and when required.  Unsafe spaces can be referred to those which create a biased environment and do not allow freedom of expression for all section of the society.

Aim of the Report

1.3 Scope of the report

The scope of this report will be identified through the analysis of a virtual situation being expressed in an audio-visual format. The following sections of the report will evaluate the video clip from the famous British television series Fawlty towers, which revolves around the story of an abusive hotel owner who along with his wife, waitress, and a waiter tries to manage clients and run a business in the sea side town of Torbay.

2. Summary and Observations

This section will cover the description of the visual in the summary and the analysis of the same will be done in the subsection as observations. The observations will look into the way the characters develop and the interpretation of their social structure.  The observations will justify the presence of safe or unsafe space.

1 Summary of the Video Clip:

The visual sample is an episode of the famous British comedy series called Fawlty towers (Spiers, 1979) created by John Cleese and his wife Connie Booth. The clip is a section from the first episode of the second season. It was first broadcasted in 1975 and then later in 1979. The scene is based in the backdrop of a hotel reception and the opening scene creates a sense of comfort, with the interaction going on with various customers from different backgrounds.

This establishes the place as a safe space and encourages comfort of the scene. Both the receptionist attends the customers in a very jubilant mood until the entry of Mrs. Richards, who thinks herself to be the cynosure of the scene. She completely neglects the gentlemen MR. Thirsten, who has however been attended by the receptionist at first, does not react to the rude behaviour that the old lady exhibits. There are three major characters in the scene, which include the receptionist Poly Sherman, the old lady Mrs. Richards, the old man Mr. Thirsten and the waiter Manuel. The main aim of the scene is to add satire through the characters.

2.2 Observations

The scene opens up with a reception scenario which shows the main characters interacting with each other.  The scene of the interaction develops with notion that the place is a safe space. As the scene develops over, it moulds into a different mood with the entry of the old lady named Mrs. Richards. She enters with a loud approach and expects herself to be treated differently. The receptionist Ms. Poly Sherman, requests the woman to wait since she is attending to an elderly gentleman who has arrived earlier than the lady. Mrs. Richards expects herself to be treated in spite of her delayed entry, which the receptionist does not entertain.

The conflict was about to start, when the receptionist cleverly guides the waiter, Manuel, to cater to the old lady. This buys her some time, to attend to the old man. Mr. Manuel is the waiter of the hotel and is not fluent with the tongue of the lady. This is a satiric representation of the event that occurred. The first scene of attending to the customers is an evidence of cultural safety and cultural capability. The scene proves the fact that all the customers are treated equally, irrespective of their background or influence. The receptionist Poly Sherman displays positive body language and treats every person equally. She shows signs of high cultural intelligence.

Scope of the Report

3. Analysis

The scene depicts a conflict scene with the receptionist and a customer who request urgent favour and totally disregards the space of others. According to Brislin, the capacity to understand other cultures and respect their differences is the key to creating cultural capability, which has been rightly reflected by Mrs. Poly Sherman. She adjusted her body language and tone of voice after analyzing the situation, which proves her competence for other communities rather surrendering to the unjustified acts of the old lady.

This is a sign of good management as she catered to the both the issues at the same time (Flanja, 2009). The body language of the lady Mrs. Richards was though very aggressive, Ms. Poly was wise enough to divert the energy away in a clever manner by avoiding further conversation.  This also proves that her cultural intelligence was also higher, which made the scene a safe space.

In dealing with the customers they come across several eccentric customers to which their response was a witty humor (Garneau & Pepin, 2015). The place does depict a safe place, yet the director had tried to create a balance by keeping four different characters with different levels of social competence. The report in the following section will identify the safe spaces, the nature of the characters and their cultural capability. The visual includes a series of events happening in the reception of the hotel where an old lady is seen to argue with the staff for not being attended to her. The .

The safety of a space (Holley & Steiner, 2005) can only be improved with increasing cultural capability among individuals and focusing in inculcating cultural competence among them. Apart from this it is important to create a safe environment all around rather than segregating separate zones as safe spaces. It is necessary for the community to develop as a tolerant community altogether. The behaviour of Ms. Poly shows that the place is a safe space. Ms. Poly eases the tension that was being created by the interfering old lady. She explains her priority and takes control of the situation by addressing the lady to the waiter and attending the old man at the counter. This balance of attention to the customers makes the place culturally safe.

4. Recommendation

The place can be regarded as a safe space due to the cultural competency shown by Ms. Poly. It is her cultural intelligence that makes the place a safe space. A space does not become safe by its virtue but rather it becomes safe by elimination of conflict in the place. The activity that Ms. Poly did was that she avoided the conflict and therefore transformed the place into a safe place. This could only be done because of her cultural intelligence. The lady claiming privileges over the old customer was attended with proper care by Ms. Poly which makes the place culturally safer.

Conclusion

Thus from the above report we can infer that the cultural competence and cultural awareness should be promoted to bring about a change in the environment. There should be adequate education regarding cultural competence and its necessity in making the work places a safer space. as we have seen from the video,  that it was the avoidance of the conflict that led to the space being a space  and not any special character that transformed it into a culturally competent and safe place. It should be noted that proper knowledge and compassion should be taught to individuals to understand the importance of cultural competence and the need for safe spaces be reduced to make the whole world a safer place.

References

Brislin, R., Worthley, R., & Macnab, B. (2006). Cultural intelligence: Understanding behaviors that serve people’s goals. Group & Organization Management, 31(1), 40-55.

Flanja, D. (2009). Culture shock in intercultural communication. Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai. Studia Europaea, 54(4), 107.

Garneau, A. B., & Pepin, J. (2015). Cultural competence: A constructivist definition. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 26(1), 9-15.

Holley, L. C., & Steiner, S. (2005). Safe space: Student perspectives on classroom environment. Journal of Social Work Education, 41(1), 49-64.

Quappe, S., & Cantatore, G. (2005). What is Cultural Awareness, anyway? How do I build it. 

Spencer-Oatey, H., & Franklin, P. (2012). What is culture. A compilation of quotations. GlobalPAD Core Concepts, 1-22.

Spiers, B. (Director). (1979, Feb 19). Fawlty Towers, Communication Problems, Handling Complaints, Season 2 Episode 1  (BBC Television program) .