facilitated by Biljana Kasic (Croatia) and Maggie Helwig (Canada)

report-back and evaluation

Report back

There were about 35 people in our group. It was a somewhat diverse group -- a lot of representation from the region, quite a few western Europeans (mostly British and German); several US-ers. A relative lack of developing world participants -- one woman from Chile, one Palestinian woman, one woman from Indonesia who was only there from day 3 on -- but this partly reflects the situation in the triennial as a whole.

The group was also extremely diverse in terms of their theoretical understanding of, and experience with, questions of identity. This meant that much of the discussion stayed at quite a preliminary and exploratory level. Nevertheless, many of the participants found this valuable, since they had hardly explored the issues before at all. It is clear that this is an area that is still new ground for much of the peace movement and should continue to be explored.

The first day was spent in a go-around asking people to say how they identified themselves, which of their possible identities were important to them; then in small-group discussion of the question, "When people look at you, how do you think they identify you?" The main purpose of this session was simply to make people aware of the complexity of the concept of identity. At the end of the session, we had people write down their thoughts and feelings about "group identity" and "individual identity".

The second day focussed on national identity and conflict. The day began with discussion in pairs asking people to think of a time when they wanted to stress their national identity or felt it to be important to them. The rest of the day was spent in group discussion, with some interventions by the facilitators, particularly Biljana.

Gender day began with a go-around on the question, "When you woke up this morning, were you aware of your gender?" Then we had two participants do a short role play in which a man played a woman and a woman played a man. Then there was a group discussion of the issues raised in the role play and other issues relating to gender identity. Participants were then asked to divide into small groups and each identify a situation of conflict in which their gender played a role. Interestingly, when the groups reported back, none cited any specific experiences; all made general reflections on gender and particularly on how they had felt about the discussions earlier in the day. Clearly they had not yet fully "processed" that material.

The fourth day began with a continuation of the discussion from gender day, which was probably more intense and more constructive than the discussions that happened on the day itself. We also came upon the interesting question of what kind of "collective identity" this theme group had so far developed. Then we spent quite a long time in small group discussions -- each group was given one intentionally provocative statement about identity to discuss, then report back to the group. There was some group discussion of the issues raised.

The final day began with people who had been relatively quiet in the discussions being asked to make comments if they wanted to; then moving into some group discussion about these comments. The rest of the day was spent brainstorming ideas for how WRI could continue these discussions, and a short evaluation.

Evaluation comments

We had a lot of positive feedback about the group; I think people found it very enjoyable, and for most people it seemed to be interesting and valuable. There's no question that the theme group developed a distinct "group identity" of its own, and people were using the ideas generated as a frame in which to view other discussions in which they participated. I think much of the positive response came from the fact that all of the participants were able -- in fact, needed -- to use their personal experiences extensively in the discussion, and the group was mostly seen as "safe space" in which personal issues could be shared.

However, I don't think we got very far in a discussion of the dynamics of identity, and, as someone observed, "we spent so much time trying to understand identity, we never really had time to talk about its relationship to conflict." The considerable differences between the participants and the relative novelty of the topic for many of them were probably the main reasons we didn't get any deeper.

Issues around "privilege" proved particularly sensitive, and gender was probably the most explosive single topic --but national/ethnic identity was also hard to discuss in much depth. Issues of, e.g., religious and class identity were barely raised. Perhaps discussion in very small groups would take us further

Most of the participants strongly recommended continuing discussion on identity issues. A brainstorm session generated some proposals for how to do that:

For WRI Strategic Plan: Continued discussion of identity issues and their relationship to conflict

• Involve presently and recently oppressed populations
  • especially indigenous peoples
  • also Palestinians from the occupied territories
  • have more contact with the Unrepresented People's Organisation and those groups within it interested in nonviolence.
• More discussions/workshops on more narrowly defined topics
  • the relationship of identity conflicts and power relationships
  • aspects of identity other than national feeling and nationalism
  • why group identities may become violent or exclusivist
  • Western identity, Southern identity, Third World identity, ex-East-Bloc identity
  • the collective identity at WRI
  • gender identity (a two week workshop?!)
• More discussions which include personal and emotional issues, in a free and safe space
• Be careful about terminology, work more on defining our terms.

The Triennial Business Meeting agreed in a general way that this was an area WRI should continue to explore, and keep in mind when formulating agendas for future meetings, but no specific plans were made.