Identity: Dialoguing with the Other and Myself
Podcasts
Identity and blended origins
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Identity-Latinx physician, LGBTQI+ healthcare advocate, migrant
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Identity - Third Culture Kid and Expat
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Identity - Influence of Social Media
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Identity - Women leaders in STEM and Global Health
Episode Description:
Welcome to our podcast on "Identity and Blended Origins." We are speaking today with Devon and Leila who are cousins who between them are of Swiss, Polish, East Indian, Dutch, Russian and Canadian descent carrying Canadian, French and Swiss passports. They speak to us about their experience as blended people and how place, geography, physical appearance and multicultural policies among other factors influence the way they are perceived and how they perceive themselves. Devon and Leila will share their common experiences but also how these experiences differed growing up in Canada, France and the UK and tips on what it really takes to understand their identity.
Join us for this in-depth conversation.
Episode Description:
Dr. Juan Román Mora is a Latinx Nicaraguan Physician, LGBTQI+ health care advocate and immigrant. He speaks to us about practicing in a heteronormative patriarchal system and how his identity and compassion speaks to communities that are underserved. He also discusses how the migrant identity exposes people to different health risks and how as a migrant physician he can identify the needs of this population. Finally, he impresses the importance of listening to yourself to understand your true identity.
Episode Description:
Dr. Anna Marie Ball is a Canadian Behavioural Scientist that has had an illustrious career in international development spending much of her time in Africa. She discusses the influence of growing up in Zambia in Africa as a white Canadian third culture kid and later her role as an expat has had on her identity and sense of belonging. She tells us of the realization that she couldn’t be Zambian because in part of her colour and her campaign to understand Canada as the country she was told she was from to understand her identity. Finally, she talks about belonging as not just being from a place but being made up of relations, feelings and experiences.
Episode Description:
Naviya from Nepal, Fang Fang from Spain and Sara from Ecuador discuss the impact that social media has on identity. Coming from different parts of the planet they show how algorithms shape identity constantly reenforcing images and messages but also how the iterative process of engaging with it influences your sense of power, responsibility and self worth. Although social media can create a sense of community to identify with, it does not represent the actual reality out in the world creating a trap for your identity in the limited reality of SM. We have a love/hate relationship with SM where we try to avoid it but are constantly drawn to it to reenforce our identity and sense of belonging. Naviya, Sara and Fang Fang leave us with an important message which is to constantly explore our larger identity outside of social media as the world is much larger than it.
Episode Description:
Dr. Dominique Charon has had an illustrious career as an epidemiologist, veterinarian in international development and as a leader in STEM and Global Health. She is the outgoing vice president of research and programmes at the International Development Research Centre in Canada. She speaks to us about the importance of having women in decision-making roles and in board rooms but also that it is not enough. She says a diversity of perspectives is important including all of society approach to make good decisions and ask the right questions in STEM and global health problem solving. Dominique also explores the role of a mother as a scientist and how structural changes need to be made in order to support scientific career trajectories in spite of the demands of motherhood.
Episode Description:
John Moses is an Indigenous Canadian and member of the Delaware and Upper Mohawk bands from the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory and Director of Repatriation and Indigenous Relations at the Canadian Museum of History. He speaks to us about reclaiming today’s indigenous identity the historical nature and legal relevance of the term “Indian” under Canadian administrative frameworks, the matrilineal nature of some bands, systems of spirituality mixing Christian and indigenous traditional practices and the austere and harrowing conditions of residential schools that generations of his family have endured.
Episode Description:
Anaelle grew up in France and studied Postcolonial theory in the United Kindgom. She devoted her time to researching her family's Jewish heritage and memories from the Middle East. She aimed for these memories to be integrated into the wider and local post-colonial imaginaries. She hopes to better understand herself in relation to her own perspectives through this research. In this podcast, she takes you through the geopolitics of the Middle East, Western Politics and the role of Colonialism in the history of Sephardi Jews who lived in Spain and Portugal until the 15th century upon which they were expelled during the Spanish Inquisition and fled to North Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans and Turkey and now can be found all over the world.
Episode Description:
Flora Kakanou is a French young professional of Cameroonian descent who studied science and is currently a business consultant in pharma. She believes that taking control of your identity is a mindset that gives the opportunity to others to learn from your experience and how that lets one not be defined by skin colour but as a whole person who can surpass any obstacles.
Episode Description:
Dr. Shukti Chaudhuri -Brill is a linguistic anthropologist who has worked extensively with the Roma and immigrant communities in Europe. She provides us with an understanding of identity from an anthropological perspective drawing on the notions of ascribed and versus achieved identities. Identity she says is at one
moment ascribed to us at birth and yet another is constantly being created and performed. The role of groups and communities in defining ourselves to either confirm or challenge our sense of identity is also discussed.
Episode Description:
Dr. Susan Perry, a Professor at the American University of Paris and Director of Graduate Studies in International Affairs and Human Rights, discusses the role identity plays in global conflict drawing examples from global conflicts and the Ukrainian conflict in particular. She speaks about how the NATO alliance identity plays a role in the conflict and how a dynamic definition of identity can contribute to resolving conflict while providing us with some tools to work with.