TECHNIQUES

Holding Our Identities

In any space we inhabit, we are never holding just one identity. We are a confluence of gender, class, race, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, and other lived experiences that shape who we are. Through this exercise, we begin to notice how our individual identities (and the ways our diverse identities meet) shape how we show up in shared spaces. Our hope is that this activity invites a deeper awareness of how we embody intersectionality, and cultivates compassion for the complexity of others and the importance of inclusion.

Written by

Quime Williams

Edited by

Gioel Gioacchino

Developed by

Stages:Community Building* Problem Identification* Reflection

Our team was invited to facilitate a co-design workshop on a women’s political framework with female parliamentarians from across Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and North Africa and the Middle East. Alongside supporting them to surface their ideas and visions, we were asked to design an exercise that could help the concept of intersectionality land in a more felt, experiential way.

We took on this challenge, and saw the potential to create a guided walking meditation to explore intersectionality. Participants are invited to move (individually yet simultaneously) while reflecting on how intersectionality shows up in their own lives and in practice.

Since then, we have integrated this exercise into our participatory action research workshops, often at the beginning of a process, to cultivate a shared language and sensibility before diving into the research itself. We have noticed that it opens a different quality of attention: participants become more curious about one another’s experiences, and more able to hold nuance and complexity.

This shift shapes how people listen, how they interpret what they encounter, and how they engage with the themes they are exploring.

What are we trying to understand about the community/group?

We are observing the different identities we hold (age, race, class, geography, class etc) and how these shape the way we show and are perceived in different spaces. Participants begin to pay attention to how they interact, leverage, or navigate their identities based on how they experience them. By inviting people to share their experiences with one another afterwards, we begin to see which identities tend to carry more weight in a given cultural or social context, and where certain experiences remain unseen or unspoken. This, in turn, helps us recognize our own blind spots.

Why is it important for the community’s/group’s development?

Inviting people to explore their own intersectionality fosters a deeper empathy for their lived experience and a greater appreciation for the nuance within our collective identities. This moves the concept of intersectionality from abstraction into a felt sense of belonging. From there, the need for inclusion becomes less theoretical and more relational, pointing to the responsibility we share in shaping more inclusive ways of working together.

At what stage(s) of the research cycle is this method used?

It’s useful to introduce this exercise early on in the research process when you are still developing the critical skills for doing PAR, and prior to getting into the topic of your research/learning process.

What do I need?

A4 paper and marker to prepare the categories before beginning the exercise.

How long does it take?

1 hr

Preparation (Create the Identify Categories)

Define the identity categories in advance with your co-facilitator and the partner organization. It is especially important to involve them if you are not from the local context. This helps ensure that the categories you include are relevant, and that the language and framing feel appropriate.

Some examples you might consider are: gender, geography (such as region, country, or neighbourhood), class, religion, sexuality, race, age, and others. We recommend working with no more than six categories, and including one labeled “Other” to allow participants to bring in identities that may not have been named but are meaningful to them.

Prepare the materials by writing one category per sheet of paper (for example: class, race, gender, age, geography, Other). Each small group should have the same set of categories. As a general guideline, groups of around six participants work well.

For instance, if you have 30 participants, you can form five groups of six. In this case, you would prepare five identical sets of the six categories, one set per group.

Place each set of categories in a small circle, and distribute these circles across the room to create separate spaces for each group.

Explain The Intentions

When you are ready to start the exercise, explain to people that we will be doing an activity to help explore the different identities we hold and how this shapes the way we move in the world and interact with others. Our intention with this exercise is to become aware of this complexity. Invite people to go stand in one of these small groups. No one group should have more than the 6 categories placed in each circle. Each person should be standing in front of one of the identities.

Explain that each circle represents a set of identity categories, and take a moment to name them one by one. Rather than defining them yourself, you might invite the group to shape what these categories mean together, creating a shared language grounded in their own contexts and experiences.

Explain that in a moment we will begin the exercise and the invitation is for each person, in silence, to think about what this identity means to them. As the facilitator you will offer some questions, and you’ll have them rotate so that by the time we’ve finished everyone has had the chance to reflect on each category.

Guided Walk Through The Identities

Put on a nice reflective song (ideally with no lyrics so it's not distracting) and invite them into the exploration, beginning with the category that is before them and considering some of the following prompts (make sure to tailor them to your specific exploration/context):

How do you experience holding this identity? (Appreciate the nuance within even one single identity)
How does this affect how you move? How are you perceived?
How does this identity support or limit your ability to do your work/what matters to you?
What does it mean to hold all of these identities together as you are doing your work? Which ones open doors for you? Which ones feel limiting?

Give them a minute to think about these questions as they stand before a single category before inviting them to rotate clockwise to the next category. Once they are in front of a new category, you will again repeat the series of guiding questions. This is not about moving through a list of questions, but about guiding the group through an experience. You might read the question with welcoming tone to support participants to engage more openly with the exercise. Continue the rotations until they are back at the identity category they started with.

Once they have walked through all identity categories, invite them to freely walk in between categories, criss-crossing in their circle. Prompt them to think about what it means for them to hold all these categories at once.

Which ones seem to be more visible and which ones seem invisible to them?

Individual Writing

Once they’ve completed the guided reflection, invite them to stay in silence and grab their notebooks or paper and a pen. Invite them to individually write down what came up for them. In particular:

What did you learn about your experience of holding multiple identities?
What can you observe about your own power and positionality?

Small Group Sharing

Invite participants to go back into the small group they did the guided walk with. Let each group know they will now have the opportunity to share anything they would like to/feel comfortable sharing about what insights came up for them related to how they relate to their identities.

Note this can be an intimate moment of sharing so make sure to give groups at least 25 minutes if not more to debrief. Give reminders about time when you are close to wrapping up.

Grounding and Debrief

Gently invite everyone back into the larger group. This could be a good moment to do a quick grounding exercise to help people feel comfortable and regulated after a conversation that could move them. This could be as simple as inviting everyone to sit comfortably in their chairs feeling the support of the chair on their backs and their feet rooted into the ground. If you have other grounding practices feel free to use them here. If the group is ok then you can skip the grounding.

Ask if anyone would like to share what came up for them around intersectionality, holding multiple identities, power or positionality through this exercise and especially after listening to each other's experiences. This can often be an enriching conversation as people begin to land the concept of intersectionality in their own words and meanings.

Even though the exercise is simple, if it’s done right it can bring a lot of depth, reflection, and intimacy into the group. Participants have the opportunity to see one another with much more compassion.

It works best when it includes moments of silence and inward attention. At the same time, silence is not neutral or comfortable for everyone: it can feel unfamiliar, or even unsettling, depending on personal or cultural context.

Rather than trying to smooth over this discomfort, your most useful tool is to name it. Acknowledging the strangeness of the exercise can help normalize the experience and create a sense of permission. We also often use slow, gentle music to support the shift toward introspection and help anchor the group in the process.