Globalization is an inevitable force that only grows stronger, transforming the world in drastic ways. It has transitioned the international community to become much more interconnected and efficient. An area in which globalization has had a large impact is cultural identity. As cities grow into international hubs, third culture kids become more common and the world begins to adopt things, such as certain fashion or music, into a sort of “global culture”. This altogether is making people more confused about their sense of identity than before. Globalization has shown that identity is not so black and white, but rather manifests itself differently in everyone.
IE University is a place full of people from younger generations who exemplify this shift in how identity is felt or classified. Ariane Sorensen is a second year at IE who is multinational and multicultural. “I was born in Denmark to a mother who is Spanish and a father who is Danish… They are now both expats and eventually settled in Germany… From the ages of 4-18 I lived in Germany. But I visited Spain a lot and I learned Spanish as a child. So in that sense, I felt a lot more Spanish than Danish, and still do. But I also had a large cultural upbringing from living in Germany surrounded by German people,” Sorensen said.
Being multinational, multilingual, and/or multicultural opens the door to a malleable sense of identity, where different ways of understanding the world and interactions become limitless. While it may be argued that globalization is only leading towards a “global culture” and has expanded cultural similarities across the world, this may be an incorrect idea. The more open the world gets, the more interactions people have, and thus the greater the possibility to have life experiences, and the ability to build unique perspectives. Many who are fluent in various languages are an example: “You think of words in the context that you experience them more. I think of academic words in English, but I’ll think of more social things in Spanish now. Childhood events I’ll think of in German… English is the language I think the most in, but I do very often switch unconsciously to Spanish or German,” Sorensen said, testifying to the unique perception of life her languages give her.
Not to mention, many people who speak the same languages have different forms of relating to each one of them and contexts in which a certain language kicks in over another. There are infinite possible combinations of how to perceive the world when there is a large and growing multilingual population.
Nevertheless, sometimes multicultural people have a hard time understanding their identities, especially when it comes to finding out where to fit in. “Coming to Spain feeling not 100% Spanish: I speak the language, I have family who I have visited every year of my life, I am Spanish but I do not feel completely Spanish,” Sorensen said, speaking about a feeling many third culture kids understand. But this particular mindset needs to be shifted. Rather than seeking to fragment identity into pieces and parts, people should seek to come to terms with the unique one that they have. Walking through life with such a multifaceted and versatile identity becomes a strength, rather than a burden. With such a mentality people will comfortably grow within themselves and bring a distinct mindset to the table.
This is why internationalized places are able to grow into cores of knowledge exchange with enriched citizens. “To a certain extent about globalization and cities, it is happening now a lot more because the world is not physically smaller but it feels like it. We have access to more things: you can travel, you are going to meet people of different nationalities, you can do education systems that are different than your national system. So you have a lot more opportunity to be diversified, in a sense,” Sorensen said, adding that, “there’s always going to be this sense that people are going to be learning from each other. I am going to be learning from my German friends, but they are also going to be learning certain I guess more ‘general European’ attitudes from me.”
When managing identity in such an international world, and more specifically in such international places like IE University and Madrid, it is important to adopt a new mindset. This will make professional and colloquial spaces for discussion more open and in effect powerful. Societies will find themselves more harmonious when in acceptance of the strengths that lie in diversity and multiculturalism.
Featured image by The Diplomatist.
