Culture & Identity

Minds Matter Magazine Volume III Issue I Culture & Identity Minds Matter Magazine Volume III Issue I Culture & Identity
inherit by genetics or circumstance.
“The world isn’t just one thing so why
should I be,” he says.
Mohsin describes this fluid identity as a
“wanderer.” This is similar to what Sedig says
is part of growing up: you realize there are
parts of you predetermined to have specific
social connotations - like the way you look
and where you come from that shape the way
you experience the world.
Having had a culturally mixed experience
growing up, she realized that she had to
manoeuvre through cultural aspects and realize
what elements she really wanted to keep
and which elements may not have been appropriate
to incorporate into her life.
Manoeuvring is different from wandering.
Though flexible and evolving, manoeuvring
implies structure and method. It means
following, and building, a framework of expectations
about the world and how you should
be.
According to the identity development
model from the book Counselling American
Minorities, people have a fulfilled identity
when they can objectively view cultural values,
and have the internal knowledge and
skills to navigate their personal freedom.
This internal value system, or framework,
allows us to navigate the world and relates
to social identities.
Humans need the structure and connection
that group identity gives.
“The stronger your group, the happier
you will be, all else (being) equal,” Inbar says.
He says a superseding group identity
that unites diverse people “should be a group
that really has some punch to it in terms of
a strong goal, a strong sense of group identity,
a strong set of group norms that we care
about.”
Sedig says she has found this in the
Bahá’í Faith, a world religion founded by
Bahá’u’lláh. Its basic principles and core values
include the oneness of humankind and
universal education. Its activities, the aim
of which is the social transformation of the
world, are global, and applied locally through
a systematic learning culture. It promotes the
belief that we are of one human body and
that diversity is to be celebrated.
By fitting cultural aspects of her life
within the encompassing framework of her
primary identity, Sedig says she has found a
degree of peace.
“I don’t feel like I constantly need to be
defining myself with these secondary identities
and, as such, I don’t feel like a fraud laying
claim to any of them,” she says. The elements
that make up who she is -like her Persian,
Jewish, and Canadian cultures- are still being
put together, but the framework of universal
humanity makes it whole.
Whatever your primary identity, the
qualities and aspirations that unite us need to
be prioritized over cultural differences. Socially
constructed categorizations can be messy
and incompatible and there is more to life
than can be defined by the labels that will
always fall short of fully encompassing who
we are.
“We’re not titles, we’re not labels.
We’re people. We’re human beings,” says
Mohsin.
That is the heart of the human framework,
our primary identity.
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