Don’t ask me where I’m from, ask me where I’m local?”
Are you Multilocal?
This amazing TED Talk invite us to rethink the typical introduction question “Where are you from?” and suggests us to reformulate it like this: “Where are you local?” Then the answer will be richer, you’ll get a better insight of the person, more accurate and interesting.
The speaker Taiye Selasi, born in UK but raised in the US with African heritage, considers herself a Citizen of the world, and more exactly a “Multi-local” person. She tries to define who she is, going to her roots and she realizes that she’s not from a country , she’s her experiences and her experiences happened locally. “How can I come from a country?” she asks. “How can a human being come from a concept?”
She proposes a three-step test, to know where are you local, she call these the 3 “R’s”:
Rituals
Relationships
Restrictions.
Next time she’s introduced, hopes Selasi, she’s described as a human being, not a citizen of the world but of worlds. Because, she says, “You can take away my passport, but you can’t take away my experience.”
TED BLOG
