Dubai, United Arab Emirates
This week I am in Dubai, and one thing that I always try to make time for while in Dubai is a stop at Global Village. Global Village is a pretty large park on the outskirts of the city that recreates famous architecture, food, and even dances from various countries and regions around the world, and gathers them together in very close proximity. Not many of my friends in Dubai are willing to make this regular pilgrimage with me – the crowds and overly-touristy-feel seem to be off-putting… but not to me!
I think Global Village is a great visual for some of the complexities we’re all grappling with in globalization. There are aspects of globalization we love: easy access, huge variety, overcoming geographic limitations to our creativity and cooperation… But there are also challenges we’re not so fond of: preserving uniqueness, protecting history and culture, and resolving identity.
That last challenge, resolving identity is one I see at play constantly with Third Culture Kids (and adults). The words we use to categorize people and cultures are less and less accurate. For many people, nationality is not a neatly concise label to cover beliefs, traditions, and experience. Many TCKs grow up with a passport that may have less to do with their experience even if it is a reminder of their (or at least their parents’) heritage. More and more people around the world have an increasingly diversity set of cultures that play into who they are and how they see the world.
I think identity is more dynamic that we realize, and while I certainly won’t say that I can explain, justify, fix, or even completely make sense of globalization – I think adjusting the way we see even the concept of identity can certainly be a useful tool on the journey. I feel identity is a bit like a zoom lens… On one extreme if we zoom all the way in on ourselves, it’s just us. We’re unique at the tightest zoom level, but also alone. On the other extreme if we zoom all the way out, we share a planet with 7 billion others and have a lot in common, but we’re easily lost in a crowd.
There are times in life we need to be unique, and times we need to belong… and sometimes those needs are so close together that we’ve got to zoom the lens pretty quickly to make sense of ourselves and those around us. We often forget there are lots of “stops” between the two extremes of this lens. Nationality is one stop, so is food preference, ethnicity, religious belief, musical taste, and so many other ways we find commonality or difference.
Some of the biggest obstacles in identity, globalization, and just about any relationship arise when we get stuck on a certain zoom setting and refuse to budge. We’ve got more in common than we think and that can be a unifying and disarming realization. We’re more unique than we give ourselves credit for – and that makes us useful and precious. Those are positive takes, but both of those statements can be used divisively as well. I think our responsibility in an ever globalizing world is going to be to use the full span of our zoom lens in constructive and positive ways. How we wield perception has incredible power in this Global Village we’re part of together.
Chris-O-Blog 