Have you ever walked into a café or restaurant or even down a supermarket aisle and felt a sense of déjà vu?
In a nutshell
- The Kiwi Code Individuality and Self-determination provides an opportunity to break the sameness that many categories inadvertently fall into. It requires an understanding of the current cultural landscape and the nuances of what individuality means in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
- The stuff we make and experiences we provide as organisations actively contribute to an individual’s identity and the way they are perceived in public.
- If we want to demonstrate individuality and self-determination in a genuine and authentic way, we should consider how our tone of voice can reinforce or enhance our current (or future) role/s in society.
It’s almost like things are becoming more and more alike and it is becoming harder to distinguish things. This sameness tends to occur when everyone is looking at things through a similar lens or problem-solving with the same tools, solutions, activations and aesthetics begin to converge.
The Kiwi Code Individuality and Self-determination provides an opportunity to break the sameness that many categories inadvertently fall into. It requires an understanding of the current cultural landscape and the nuances of what individuality means in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Our identity
Erving Goffman’s microsociological (the study of human social interaction and agency in our everyday lives) theory of Impression management (The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1959) provides a useful framework in which face-to-face interactions can be analysed to better understand the social dynamics that play a part in self-expression and individuality while navigating the cultural context of Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Impression management theory describes the goal-orientated conscious (or unconscious) process in which we regulate and control information so that we can instil a positive impression of our self onto the people we are interacting with. The theory gives us a viewpoint in which the stuff we make and experiences we provide as organisations actively contribute to an individual’s identity and the way they are perceived in public. In many ways, the products and services one choses to use acts as a celebration of one’s individuality and self-determination.
In many ways, the products and services one choses to use acts as a celebration of one’s individuality and self-determination.
Goffman’s theory describes social interactions as happening on a metaphorical ‘stage’ whereby ‘actors’ (us as people) work together to create, maintain, defend or enhance our own, and each other’s’ identities and role/s in a given situation through the use of language (verbal and body), clothing and a myriad of other things we might draw on to navigate a situation. We may even play many roles, drawing upon multiple ‘masks’ or wearing several simultaneously, bringing a unique perspective and reinforcing one’s individuality.
Our identities in this case are not singular or fixed. Rather, a social construct constantly in flux and negotiation - a product of social interaction.
Cultural forces
As social interactions do not happen in a vacuum, we also need to consider the cultural forces at work.
In the case of New Zealand, while being an individual and expressing differences is valued, maintaining collective harmony is also important.
In the case of New Zealand, while being an individual and expressing differences is valued, maintaining collective harmony is also important.
To bring back Goffman’s metaphorical stage, when we interact with others we try to maintain social harmony (“support the collective good”), Kiwis “don’t rock the boat” and “don’t make a song and dance about it” so that things go smoothly. However, things go awry when this harmony is broken by actions that undermine the collective, even if the act of individuality had good intention.
