3 + 2 Identities

3 + 2 Identities

Materials: Small papers of different colours, pencils Exercise description The participantssitina circle.Everyonegetsthreepapers(notes) of one colour and two of another colour.

  1. They are told to write three of their identities on the three note papers. (I am…)
  2. On the fourth paper they write the identity of the person sitting to their right. (S/he is…)
  3. On the fifth paper they write the identity of the person sitting to their left. (S/he is…)
  4. Then they read out what they have written, with the first person reading out the identities they noted down as applying to themselves. Then the participants sitting to either side pass her/him their notes with the identities they assigned him/her and s/he reads them aloud (“And I am also…”). When everyone has had a turn, a discussion is conducted in the plenary.

Discussion in the plenary

 

Suggested questions to evaluate the exercise: How did you feel when you were choosing your identities and how did you feel when you read the identities assigned to you? Are your chosen and your assigned identities equally important for you?

 

Alternative version of the exercise

Additional steps may be added to this exercise: ͳ The trainer asks the participants to discard one of the five identities. Then the questions are posed for discussion in plenary: “How did it feel to discard an identity? How did you choose which one to discard?” ͳ The trainer then asks the participants to discard two of the remaining four identities. Question for the plenary discussion: “How difficult was it? Which identities were easier to discard and why? Do you recognise a social mechanism that forces people to give up their identities, discarding or hiding them?”

Type of exercise:

Individual work, Plenary work

Duration:

15-60 min

Notice:

Additional steps may be added to this exercise:

Possible difficulties:

Related Workshops:

Identity and differences

Workshop example: