“Where are you from?”
… The Question that is so often asked yet has such limited meaning …
I recently gave an interactive keynote session entitled “Re-framing and Re-sensing: Towards a Borderless World” at the International Cultural Education Symposium in St. Pölten, Austria. Using cultureQs, delegates were provoked to reflect on the background to their world view. To end the session, the audience (110 people) held small-group conversations on this question …
How many different ways could you answer the Question:
“Where are you from?”
Afterwards, I was approached by one of the organisers who commented:
“Brilliant Question!
I hate the question, ‘Where are you from?’, because it attempts to categorise me in a way that is simply not possible. And on top of that it says absolutely nothing about me, who I am, what moves me.”
