With the dust settling from Toronto Carnival, many voices
and questions have been raised regarding this year’s parade. Critiques pertaining to the parade route, the
issue of stormers, and procession of the bands were highly scrutinized; however
in actuality have been longstanding topics of debate prior to 2014. Rather than
reiterate the criticism, I believe it is more advantageous to shift the focus
and priority to determining what can be done to propel improvement and
solutions in the future. Within this post, the issue of storming and
communication strategy to deter this behavior will be discussed.
As mentioned by many sites, there is a heightened need to
emphasize the cultural underpinnings and respect for the mas displayed within
carnival. I wholeheartedly agree and commend organizations like the Toronto
Masqueraders Association and media sites such as Karabana Blog and Trinidad
Carnivals for their commitment to advocacy and raising public awareness. Drawing
from my experience within healthcare, one limitation I observe with the
provision of information, is that despite one’s efforts it may not necessarily
drive behavior change. Consider an everyday example: while watching a television
program, a commercial comes on that describes the benefit of exercise and
nutrition as way to prevent diabetes. Bearing
in mind only the information that is presented within the commercial, do you
think you will feel motivated to exercise or eat healthier? Possibly not if you
feel this commercial does not apply or is targeted to you; and even more so
unlikely if you currently enjoy or prefer the status quo of being sedentary and
inactive. Along the same lines, using the issue of storming as an example,
although information is provided to the general public regarding Toronto
Carnival, I believe if information on respecting the mas is not also targeted
to the audience that engages in this behavior, changing the status quo (i.e. jumping
the fence) will continue to be an uphill battle.
Cultural Competency
and Cultural Sensitivity:
Apart from the goal to raise awareness and drive attendance
to the events taking place during the three week Toronto Carnival festival, I
would suggest the goal should also include promoting enhanced cultural
competency and cultural sensitivity within audiences. In looking at the terms cultural competency
and cultural sensitivity, the commonality is the word culture. Culture is
defined as the “values, norms and
traditions that affect how individuals of a particular group perceive, think,
interact, behave, and make judgments about their world.” So what does cultural have to do with being
competent and sensitive? Although several definitions apply to the term
cultural competency depending on the context in which it is used, one
definition of the term is that it is the congruent behaviors, attitudes and policies that come together as a system, agency or
among professionals and enable that system, agency or those professionals to
work effectively in cross-cultural situations. Despite the above definition
being quite the mouthful, where I see and draw the relevancy to the issue of
stormers is to the point on congruent behaviors within a cross-cultural
situation. Generally speaking, although Toronto Carnival is a
celebration of Caribbean culture, it is held within a city and attended by
patrons who are diverse and as such inadvertently the parade occurs within a cross-cultural
situation. Turning our attention to the term cultural sensitivity, this is
defined as the knowledge, awareness and
acceptance of other cultures. Collectively, the reason why I think it is
important to incorporate these terms within the lens that we view Toronto
Carnival, is I believe the goal is to not only heighten knowledge and
awareness, but to also to promote the adoption of shared attitudes, behaviors
and supportive policies that preserve the essence of Toronto Carnival as a
celebration of culture within not only masqueraders but among non-masqueraders
and law enforcement.
Targeted Interventions and Engagement
How then can we inform, raise awareness and effect behaviors
pertaining to participation in Toronto Carnival and in particular the Grand
Parade? In considering the delivery of information through social media,
newspapers and magazines, my personal observation is although phrases such as Jump
on de Road or Feel the Vibe, highlight the festival as a celebration of
culture, it does not promote the desired behavior of stormers to respect the
mas or allude to the parade being in part a competition. Although I am not
suggesting I have concrete answers as to how to solve the issue of stormers, I
do believe the possible solution lies in the combination of interventions that
include providing information, use of products such as fences and wristbands,
incorporation of policies and enforcement and participatory engagement from multiple
stakeholders.
Apart from effective management, organization and inclusion
of initiatives that ensure the parade runs smoothly, I do believe there is
utility in designing targeted messages and interventions to deter storming
among the audience that participates in this behavior. But who is the target audience or more simply
who storms? If we define a stormer as non-masquerader that enters the parade
route, one intervention could be to incorporate signage posted on fences which
advises one to stay behind the barrier. As a realist however, I know posting a
sign to stay behind the fence, would be unlikely to stop a non-masquerader who
is equipped with wire cutters, especially when the current status quo (ie. ignoring
the sign and passing through or jumping the fence) is deemed as acceptable in
his or her eyes. Well what about the incorporation of security as a secondary
intervention, for those who don’t adhere to the signs? Although I think this is
great and also necessary, its limitation is that it is a reactive intervention
rather than proactive intervention. This
leads me back to thinking about the question of who the target audience is and perhaps
warrant the need to define stormers with more specificity. Retrospectively, I
acknowledge it would be quite difficult to collect information on the number of
stormers that were on the route, in addition to what were their
characteristics, however I cannot ignore the fact this type of information
could prove to be quite useful when trying to design and deploy messages that
are targeted to this audience.
Are we really reaching Stormers?
When evaluating the effectiveness of current strategies
(more on this topic later), one variable that should be considered is whether
there was a change or impact within the target audience, and the reasons why or
why not it occurred. When I consider information I post on The Collabo blog or
Facebook page, for example, I am aware that the audience that reads my blog is
likely interested in carnival and associated information on the parade and upcoming
events. I assume these readers already have connectivity or interest in the
information that is being shared, and as such they want to stay informed on the
new information pertaining to carnival. Do we however view stormers the same
way? Are stormers reading our blogs, visiting our Facebook pages or websites
for information? My guess is probably not. Regardless of how well the message
is constructed, if it is not delivered through channels that the target
audience is engaged with or exposed to, its effectiveness may be limited. This
leads me to suggest that if our intention is to provide information with the
aim to promote awareness of Toronto Carnival, and in addition promote cultural sensitivity,
competency and overall behavior change within stormers, the latter
communication and interventions should be delivered from a targeted
approach. If for example, the perception
is that a large proportion of stormers are males between the ages of 20-29,
perhaps one strategy to communicate messages to participate in playing mas,
and/or adhere to staying behind fences would be to have this information available
and accessible within locations that the target population visits (ie barber
shops) and incorporate information the audience values (ie the ratio of women
to men). Using an everyday example, think about the interventions and communication
strategy that has been used to deter driving and texting. Only a few years ago
this behavior was commonplace, however with the introduction of visual cues on
billboards on our the highways, the enforcement of fines, as well as the
delivery of messages that highlight the danger and potential implications, driving
and texting is becoming less of the norm.
Perhaps addressing the issue of storming is similar in that it requires
a mix of communication strategies and interventions that are used to deter and
prevent this behavior.
As a summary of Part One of my Toronto Carnival Reflection, this
post was intended to highlight the relationship between the provision of information
and behavior change, in addition to encourage the inclusion of cultural competency
and cultural sensitivity as an underlying goal of communication strategies.
Stay tuned for Part Two of my Toronto Carnival Reflection,
where I plan to discuss the use of social marketing, evaluation and inclusion
of a participatory approach (bottom up and top down).
What are your thoughts? Feel free to share your opinions by posting a comment below or sending an email to the writer, Yinx, at the.collabo.inc@gmail.com