During the course of the photo board exercise, I
was personally challenged to discover my perspectives on my own culture,
identity, human rights, and historical influences. Since sharing my photos, I
have gained and widened my thoughts about many things not only through my own
research but also pondering upon others’ point of view.
According to Ryan (2010), culture cannot be
separated from us and is evident when we move and get involved in another
culture. Living overseas has exposed me to a new culture that is far different
from mine. I opted for things that strongly represent my culture and have never
departed it – music and dance. This is because I find it incredible to see how alive
our cultural music and dance are even in a different country surrounded by many
other different cultures.
Determining my personal identity was particularly
the toughest out of all the topics. But, I ended up choosing my family to
represent my personal identity. I believe that identities are continuously built
throughout one’s life. Seeing that many students have also chosen their family
as a representation, I recalled that difference and uniqueness are few of the
concepts discussed in this paper. Lawler (2008) suggests that no two people
have exactly similar lives. Having read that gave me the idea that even though
a number of us have the same things to represent our own identities, there is
still something unique about each one.
The human rights portion was both interesting and reasonably
easy. Although previously, I did not realise how many human rights are listed
on the declaration. But recognising that I am in a very diverse environment, I
focused on discrimination as my human rights perspective. As stated in The
United Nations (n.d) declaration of human rights, everyone has the right to the
law and is equal without any discrimination. Unfortunately, this is not the
case in today’s society as I see that treating others unjustly is very
unavoidable and perhaps society is not even fully aware of this behaviour.
Out of the many historical influences in society
today, I found one that is very significant. At first, it was a
bit of a struggle for me to find a huge influence in the society seeing that
many of the other students’ posts are about similar people. Until I learned in
class that an influence in my country could be an option, I easily decided
which one to do. I recollected the things I have learned about history during
my school days in the Philippines and came up with the Spanish influence. My
photo depicted four clear evidences of their influence that is still very
existent today. I realised how much they have imparted to the Filipino culture and how we, as a country, embraced these influences.
In developing those four photos, I have thoroughly applied
the knowledge I have acquired from the first few weeks of the lectures.
I also had the privilege to get to know other cultures and identities. Moreover,
my ideas have been influenced by others' very insightful posts as they
have increased my awareness and understanding of things.
References
Ryan, M. (2010). Preface. In
Cultural Studies: A practical introduction.
Hoboken: Wiley, pp. viii-xii.
Lawler, S. (2008). Identity
sociological perspectives. Cambridge, U.K.: Malden,
Mass: Polity Press.
The United Nations, (n.d). The
universal declaration of human rights.
Retrieved April 6, 2015, from http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr
