Identity

In this blog, I chose to respond to the readings entitled  Identities and Social Location: Who am I? Who are my people? written by the authors Kirk, G & Okawaza-Rey, M. The argument these authors presented in their article has to do with identity formation.  According to these authors, they argue that identity is fluid and changes over a lifetime, although it may appear to fixed at different points in time.  Because of the identity information taken in about oneself such as Who am I?, Who do I want to be?, Who do others think I am and want me to be?, What does society say I am; the set of complex decisions interplay in such a way that overtime the experiences may cause you to answer these questions differently depending where you are in your journey. For instance, the authors identify four different levels of identity, such as, micro, meso, macro, and global.  The scenarios or experiences portrayed at each level may have a significant impact on one's identity formation.  "At the micro level, individuals usually feel the most comfortable as themselves. At this level we define ourselves and structure our daily activities according to our own preferences."  For instance, on the micro level being myself would imply that I identify as a woman, heterosexual, working middle class first generation American. "It is at the meso level-at school, in the workplace, or on the street-that people most frequently as "Who are you?" or "Where are you from?" in an attempt to categorize us and determine their relationship to us. It is here that people experience the complexities, conflicts and contradictions of multiple identities..." I can definitely relate to this quote.  In my personal experience, growing up within the community it was so much easier to navigate through life with my identity intact.  As I knew and those closest to me from home and church community know who I was.  I did not feel the need to "identify" or "justify" my identity.  It was not until I started school where and when my identity became a question.  The challenge was mainly, because my appearance or my genotype did not match the icons or media images portrayed on television. The next levels of identity as purported by the authors are on the macro and global levels. These two levels are related to the social categories, classifications and structural inequality. "Classifying and labeling human beings, often according to real or assumed physical, biological, or genetic differences, is a way to distinguish who is included and who is excluded from a group, to ascribe particular characteristics, to prescribe social roles, and to assign status, power and privilege. "  The authors continue to state that "people are to know their places."  This is the most significant point in identity formation. As it has been decided who you are based on a number of classification system which has been predetermined by the powers that be.  These powers are to ensure control over the masses of people through maintaining a system of structure.

In this link below, the author of the thesis addresses structural system of inequality on a global level as it relates to world politics. The second link is an image of caged birds with an open door who have not flown away.  Why don't the caged birds fly?  I think its an interesting image of structural inequality as it relates to the conditioning of the system and how we define ourselves.

http://pages.ucsd.edu/~ehafner/pdfs/io_networks.pdf
http://www.projectlinkedfate.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CagedBirds.jpg