Identity Negotiation

Well! Leave it to a researcher to take something as complicated as Identity and be able to put it into a theory! Actually, I have known about identity theory for some time- but when I learned about it, I "thought" I knew who I was, where I was going, what I would be doing....hmmm NOPE!

Anyway, on Thursday, April 14th during International Week at George Mason (OBVIOUSLY one of my favorite weeks!!!) We attended a session on identity negotiation. We started by doing an icebreaker (LOVE*) to talk with different people in the room. I must say, this was a tough* one- It had statements like

"(Name of person) grew up differently than I did and I learned (huge blank) from talking to this person"!

-and-
"(Name of person) has a different sexual orientation than I do and I learned (huge blank) from talking to this person".

-and-
"(Name of person) has a different religion than I do and I learned (huge blank) from talking to this person"

Now... I don't have to say that I am an open person and I ADORE* meeting new people.. but this was VERY difficult... another one was race. Walking up to someone and asking about one of their identities? It was sort of like the bingo icebreaker where once one spot is filled- then you have to fill up all of the others. I was able to fill in the race blank as well as the religion-which I would say were some of the easier ones. I did however, stay away from the sexual orientation blank. However, comfortable I am with talking to people and asking them questions- I am not about to go up to someone ask them if they have a different sexual orientation than me (ASSUMPTIONS) and then walk away if they don't and I had assumed that they did. Anyway- we then listened to the introduction of some panelists that talked about how they identified (American- Iranian- LGBTQ-Muslim etc.) and then we were put into groups to discuss an Identity Negotiation Strategy Matrix. This was mostly based on communication approaches and how some styles can have weaknesses. We were charged with finding the "best" one... so my group talked about it and had decided that we were going to say something different to create some devil's advocacy discussion. But then...

FIREDRILL!!!!

Which lasted until about 6:50pm.. so most of the session was over. But during the firedrill- our class stood together and chatter. It was a nice moment because we really all stood together and chatted about this class and classes we were taking in the fall- I realized that although we have had some of the deepest discussions that I have ever had and we did our cultural cajitas.... we still didn't know each other very well! So I think that overall from this session- I learned that you can have your own identity in mind...and you can feel comfortable around people and the thoughts that you have around yourself...but with different situations, that can always be altered, especially in a sudden way.