What does my style say about my identity?

What’s your style? Your preferences in clothes, music, and the arts may reflect more than what you like. Think about what your choices may reflect about who you are, where you are from, and where you belong. Perhaps your choices are more than personal. They may be a way to tell the world about your identity and your tie to your community. You will explore how individuals and collectives express a sense of who they are through clothes, music, art, literature, and dance.

Examine the arts and attire of individuals and collectives presented in this lesson. The arts and attire may express the values, ideological beliefs, traditions, role models, religion, spirituality, and connection to the land of individuals and groups. These expressions may be unique to the community and collective. Individuals in the community may use these expressions to demonstrate a sense of belonging.

In a globalizing world, as transportation and communication technologies increase the access and availability to diverse arts and attire for citizens around the world, some observers say that people may be approaching a universal set of expressions of identity or that they may be observing the emergence of new expressions that are a hybrid of many expressions. Does this mean that if, as an individual, when you make personal choices about the arts and your attire, your own collective expressions may be lost as newer global expressions become popular? Keep this in mind as you explore expressions of identity.

Read

Pages 39-42 in your Perspectives on Globalization textbook. 

Multimedia

Arts and attire are the most visible expressions of creativity and style. What do they express about individual and collective identities?  Check out some of the various styles here. 

• Mayan Traje
• Inuit Attire
• Burma
• Page 40-42 in your textbook about The Maori Art of Ta Moko and The Revival of Maori Culture about individual and collective identities.

Reflection

Open this reflection activity here- Globalization of Style. Not for marks but important! 

Assignment

Your assignment in called  Arts and Attire.

Summary

Expressions of identity hold complex meanings. They may be an expression of individual freedoms and tastes. They may express your collective understandings and your membership in a unique group. They are outward signs to people about who you are. Increased global contact can share who you and your community are to others, but they can also open your unique expressions to change. As a result, expressions of identity can evolve and identities can evolve in a globalizing world. You can embrace a universal identity or resist the erosion of your unique collective identity. Who you are now may not be the same as globalization increases in influence.