A month or so I spoke at a great community engagement on Future of Identity. An initiative of the Office of Births, Deaths and Marriages, it was put together by Doing Something Good. With huge changes around identity and social media, the Office wanted to hear from the public about the future of identity. So, a night of …
* dress ups and photos – to get the ‘feel’ of identity
* very diverse perspectives in the presentations
* informal discussion around key themes
as well as heaps of tweeting #
Who to engage?
So this event got me thinking about community engagement. Especially how we strive for population samples that are representative of the community as a whole as a kind of ‘truth’. Well, this whole night highlighted the implications of identity in this quest.
What defines me and you?
So many things can potentially define anyone. Yet we label. Young. Old. Professional. Outworker. High school leaver. Now, a rich source of potential and information is pushed away. For example, someone is recruited under the category ‘Chinese’ or ‘CALD’. It turns out they’re Singaporean and have lived for the last five years in Chicago, identify with queer politics, and and punk music.
I enjoyed bringing together my identities as speaker, celebrant and human Here’s the Storify pulling it all together.