by adamovic@uoregon.edu -

Video Three: Singapore Families Speak Out For LGBT


(From Singapore. By theonlinecitizen. Available here.)

Because no one creates their own identity around a singular trait or community, those differing ways of explaining who we are can often collide, sometimes in opposition. In this video we see Singaporean LGBT identified people and their families coming together in a positive way. Different aspects of our identities are constantly intersecting. In this case, the two pieces of one person’s identity coming together are their sexuality and family identities and both of these are unchangeable. You are born to a certain family and you are born with a certain sexuality. Perhaps that makes these two so difficult to reconcile. Here, however, in the space of this video, these families are able to accept all parts of each other’s personas.

by adamovic@uoregon.edu -

Video Six: World’s Next Super Model


(From International. By GlobalDevMatters. Available here.)

There are clearly many ways to define oneself, but the world also chooses to define people as one way or another. In this video, this Super Model reclaims her own identity and refuses to be subjected to the stereotypes of a disease. Though HIV+ is an important aspect of who she is, it is not the only part. She is a mother, an activist, a friend, a role model (a super model), and more. The fact that she is HIV+ spills over into the other pieces of her identity to help her become the person she is. She is not defined by her disease, but allows the disease to be be a part of her whole self. She owns the disease as a way of explaining who she is, not the other way around.

by adamovic@uoregon.edu -

Video Seven: The Bridge


(From Australia. By Anonymous. Available here.)

This final video in our series looks to the hopeful future. Identity blurs the boundaries between people and communities and can cause rifts between them. But the ability to look past all of the individual pieces of a person to see the whole person is really important. In this video, it is a couple of children who are able to look past race and clothing and cultural differences and just see another human. So often identity can divide us and we look at what is so different from one person to another, but it can also be used to explore just how similar we all are.