Reflection.

I enjoyed this photo board assignment quite a lot. It was fun seeing everyone’s opinions and comparing them to mine.

Lawler (2008), looks at identity as being ‘who I am’, and as such, I chose to use a picture of my family to represent this. It is my family whose beliefs and values raised me, and though I may not now follow those same beliefs, they are what made me who I am today. As a Maori family, and really into whanau, my family has always been there, always been very close to me. I know I would be a different person if I hadn’t had such a close connection with them, especially with my cousins, seeing as I’m the youngest. I was always the one protected and cherished, coddled if you will, and so whatever identity I carved out for myself, was whatever they allowed me to be.

According to Ryan (2010), culture is a part of our everyday lives, it is something we practice subconsciously. My culture is the mixing of Pakeha and Maori, and I show it every day that I sing Maori songs with my dad, and greet people in English or Maori. I show it in the way I respect my elders, and in the way that I dress. I show it in the way that I mix Maori and English together when I speak. And the picture I chose conveys the mixing of these two ethnicities perfectly.

Article 25 of the Declaration of Human Rights says that everyone has the right to medical care and an adequate standard of living. Except, if this was true there would not continue to be stigma around mental illness. The pictures I chose show part of the struggle those who self-harm face, the knowledge that there has to be more to life than self-harming, but never being able to see it, along with the idea that the only person who can save you, is you. When you’re dying of cancer, no one comes and sits beside your hospital bed and tells you ‘just get up, stop complaining, life isn’t fair’ and that you deserve to die for not keeping yourself from self-destructing. That’s what cancer is. It’s your body destroying itself, and depression is the cancer of the soul. The only person you can look to for support is yourself, and it shouldn’t have to be that way. Because if the only person fighting for you, is you, and no one hates you more than you do, well, it’s a miracle if you survive.

People always look at Historical Influences as being heroes. As being the people who saved the day, or took a stand. But that’s not all historical influences are. Historical influences are people who made a difference, whether it was a good difference or a bad one. They inspired change. And that is why I chose the picture of the Nazi symbol, since Hitler and his Nazi regime caused so much chaos and destruction, but they also brought about the motivation for the Declaration of Human Rights, and for the formation of the UN. The Nazi experiments also brought about the Nuremburg code of ethics, which was the foundation for the current ethical codes used today.

References:

Lawler, S. (2008). Identity: Sociological perspectives. Malden, MA.

Ryan, M. (2010). Cultural studies: A practical introduction. New Jersey, NY.

United Nations. (n.d). The Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved 7^th April. From: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/