jenniferdebeer

Losing one´s identity + Zittrain article

With my move to Spain, I lost three aspects of my identity, and which I then needed to grapple with in an effort to find and define again. For instance, aspect 1 - going from being lecturer to student. I´ve never been exclusively the one nor the other, so adapting my self to a notion of "student" still feels strange and does not fit. I am always somehow more than just one role. I guess many people have this sense, yet we are frequently expected to only don one hat.

I recall attending my first, no second, Linguistics conference in 2000, and in chatting to a noted and lauded Linguistics professor from Stanford University on our way to dinner. He´d asked me who I was, what I do etc. At the time I was working for an NGO, studying Linguistics, etc. So, after giving this guy the overview on my professional life, he turns to me and in a very serious tone asks: "Yes, but are you a Linguist?. ...Rather pregnant pause on both sides ensues. I look at him and reply "Is that a trick question?", as if to say "would life be that simple".

Aspect 2 - my old jad at sun e-mail address which I´ve had for the past 7 years or so. Aspect 3 - my mobile number which I´d had ever since I´ve had a mobile (1995). My e-mail address, and mobile number, had become part of my identity, much like identity numbers. I don´t think many of my friends and colleagues understood this. For many of them these were disposable aspects of myself.

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Zittrain article on the way forward for law and technology, titled "Without a Net" see http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2006/feature_zittrain_janfeb06.msp

posted by Jennifer A. DeBeer @ 18:54