Bi-Partisanship in Identity Issues

Helen Chauncey

The Coexistence Initiative

Interviewed by Julian Portilla, 2003


This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).

We really are talking about understanding identity in a new way. In the sense that we are arguing strongly that identity is part of the human condition. You cannot park it at the door. So the word "neutral," if it refers to identity as neutral, is problematic. We are not arguing for being partisan, as in "I like identity A better than identity B." Let's say we only have two identities at issue in a conflict. We are talking about being bi-partisan, as in both identities need to be more than just recognized. We need to encourage side A and side B to want the identity of the opposite side to be part of the equation for conflict resolution.