This session would aim to peel away the layers of meaning that exist between the personal and political. It would cover religion, culture, class, sexualities, gender and various other permutations of the word ‘identity’, and the way in which people negotiate these multiple identities and, in the process, interact with the state and other socio-economic structures. It would seek to describe the effects that these ‘manipulating’ identities have: how they influence actions, choices, access, and how these identities in turn impact upon each other when there is a confluence of multiple identities. It would look at how individuals create spaces within which they can organize or exist in their ‘multiplicity’, how they exert their agency within these spaces, or interpret, affirm and eventually access their rights [the multiple layers of rights related to these multiple identities]. Finally, the session would also look at the fluidity between identities, transitions from one identity to another, and the practical things people do in order to negotiate the realization of their aspirations within these identities.
