Who are you?
We don’t mean your name, or even what you do for work or school – we mean “who are you”. The “who” that we are is the result of a combination of facets of our identity that are, in themselves, a combination of other things. Who we are today is not the same as who we were in the past, or who we will be in the future, interdependent on so many other things within and outside of ourselves. What is important to you in terms of your identity and who you are is different from who someone else will be and what is important to them. Of course, it is sometimes easy to fall into the trap of looking at the world through the narrow lens of our own experience; we see the world in a particular way, and we see identity in a particular way, which can mean it becomes a challenge to understand the perspectives of others who experience the world and navigate identity differently to us.
Identity is shaped by our life experiences – how we are brought up, where we are brought up, childhood experiences, adulthood experiences, and many other factors external to us. There is also the internal sense of identity; how we perceive ourselves and feel about who we are, our relationship and connection with aspects of ourselves such as gender, culture, race, socioeconomic status, sexuality, and so on. For some, one or more of these areas may be an important, self-defining aspect of their personhood; for others, they may be less important.
Understanding each other comes from a place of recognising the importance of self-identity. This Pride month, LGBTQIA+ community members and allies will celebrate and pursue the right to self-express an important aspect of many people’s identity worldwide, one that is still not freely permitted in many areas of the world. Coming to understand the importance of identity to others is a skill we can learn, just as we can build our ability to be empathetic and compassionate with learning and with practice.
We have created a free practical activity resource to help you and your team work through some Diversity, Equity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEEI) questions together, exploring the question of “Who am I?”. Consider why your identity is important to you, and how you can extend this understanding to better understand the identity of others.
Download the resource from our resources page HERE and you are welcome to download any other free resources, check out our podcast, and more!
Everything is teamwork at AnimalConcepts; we share our projects, writings, and other content to include a variety of voices and perspectives. We want to celebrate Max for leading the creation of this resource and blog, and we hope you enjoy, share, and learn together.
