That’s TMI: The Meaningful Insights Podcast
That’s TMI: The Meaningful Insights Podcast delves into the heart of human-centred and caring professions, sharing honest, practical stories from education, community services, family services, social work, and many other fields focused on people and relationships. Featuring the voices of practitioners, leaders, researchers, carers, young people, and sector experts, it offers insights, reflections, and ideas for anyone committed to helping children, young people, families, and communities flourish.
That’s TMI: The Meaningful Insights Podcast
Identity and Belonging, with Dr Beau Hu-Jia
Dr Beau Hu-Jia explores the links between identity, belonging, and learning. The discussion considers how cultural diversity shapes school experience, why belonging must celebrate uniqueness, and what leaders and teachers can do to make inclusion tangible, from curriculum choices to everyday interactions.
Guest: Dr Beau Hu-Jia, National School Partnerships Manager, Together for Humanity
Produced by: The MacKillop Institute
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That's TMI, the Meaningful Insights podcast, delving into the heart of human-centered professions.
Christopher Higgins:That's TMI is recorded on the lands of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to all the traditional custodians of the lands on which you are joining from today. Welcome back to the very next episode of that's TMI. You're joined again by two of your hosts, Chris Higgins and Smita Singh. Hello, thank you so much for joining us, everyone, today, and we are very lucky to be joined by a special guest today, Dr. A special guest today, , and we'll do a short introduction to Dr Hu and then we'll maybe ask him to introduce himself a little bit more, and I am really going to try and avoid making any references to a well-known TV show. But, Dr Bo Hu, I am very lucky to call you a former colleague and also a good friend as well, and I know a little bit about you from having worked with you over a few years.
Speaker 1:Just a little bit.
Christopher Higgins:Just a little bit, and having known you for a few years now, but to give a bit of a brief bio to you in terms of your work. Currently you are the National Schools Partnership Manager for Together for Humanity, a great not-for-profit working with schools all across Australia on cross-cultural, intercultural and interfaith dialogue and trying to prevent prejudice and stereotypes and racism. And I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about that.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Wow, you know everything about me and my work. Oh, that's only one thing. We haven't even started yet Scratching the surface.
Christopher Higgins:yeah, and you formerly were the education programs manager at the asia education foundation, which is part of the university of melbourne, where you work to promote intercultural capabilities across school students and also staff. So teachers across 23 countries so Australia and Southeast Asia, north Asia, pacific and then, before that, you were a Chinese teacher teaching Chinese language and you also did a PhD looking at young people who were born in Australia but with Chinese heritage, and what some of their experiences were, specifically around identity and belonging, and we thought that might be our talk for today. Is that a good brief summary?
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Yeah, wow, that's a very comprehensive summary, and hello everyone. My name is Dr Beau Hu, and, but my Hu's style is HU. Yeah, so lovely to be here and to chat with you, Chris, and thank you for having me. Yes, you know a lot about my, my previous life, Chris. Let's talk about that.
Christopher Higgins:But let's start with some of that journey for you and my first question would be around that study that you did. So you did a PhD, you did doctoral studies and research that would have taken several years and you were explicitly exploring some of these identity and belonging things for some of our Australian Chinese children and young people. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that?
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Yeah, sure, I started my PhD research 2013, but actually it's related to my previous experience of teaching Chinese in England and so I did a master's in England about British-born Chinese children learning Chinese language in a community language school setting. I focused on the teachers' beliefs and practices around this group of students and then I came to Australia in 2013 to pursue my PhD in the Australian context and actually, compared to England, australia has a larger Chinese population. That means we have more Australian-born Chinese children, overseas-born Chinese children, compared to the context in the UK. So I was very interested in this group of kids Growing up up.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:At least two cultures speak multiple languages and I was very interested in their identities and the connection between the identity and their language use.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:And let's say, chris and I know you a lot as well and, too, and your parents actually are from England, right, but for me you are Scottish, because I think one of the main reasons is very obvious because of your Scottish accent, right. So transfer that link between your language and your identity to the Chinese-Australian context Kids speaking a variety of Chinese language, not necessarily Mandarin Chinese, which is the official language of China. They might speak a variety of Chinese like Shanghainese or Cantonese or Hokkien or Hakka. There's just so many of different types of Chinese language and each of them they have their unique kind of identity element to it and, for instance, myself is from Northern China. When I'm communicating with a person from Northern China, I feel like there's more connection compared to if I'm talking to a person from the very south of China. There's a lot going on right Within one community, within one culture. There's a diversity relating to regional languages or dialects or even accent that create that kind of emotional connection.
Christopher Higgins:I have so many questions already for you, and I think one of the ones that immediately comes to my mind is about the connection between language and culture. Are they interconnected and closely intertwined? You made the statement there about when you're speaking with someone from northern China. You feel more of a connection. So how connected or in what ways are language and culture?
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:I think actually I'm talking about language and that emotional connection and identity. I think culture probably is too much a big term and we still have debate around what culture is in academia. But I think my point is language, emotion and identity. There is a connection there.
Speaker 1:Can I ask a question then, bo? For Australian-born Chinese young people, for example, who are obviously growing up in predominantly I'm assuming English-speaking schools, they're surrounded by English-speaking peers. What then did you discover in terms of their identity, like the conflict that then occurs between viewing yourself as English-speaking, between viewing yourself as English-speaking Australian-born young person, but then also being at home or being part of a family that might identify slightly differently. And what did you find in the clash of those two worlds if there was a clash.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Wow, sumita, thank you Just spot on. You immediately mentioned the word conflict. That already shows the level of your intercultural understanding.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Normally, people, if we look at the public discourse, people always say, oh, let's celebrate multiculturalism, let's celebrate multilingualism. I think the society tend to think growing up multilingually and multiculturally is a harmonious thing. We say, oh, we are one community, proud diversity, right. So we're trying to say, yeah, that's fine, everyone is different, we are living in a harmonious society. I think that's the public discourse. That's good in one way you unite people together, but on the other hand, sentiment or discourse dismiss that conflicts or the struggles, identity-wise or emotion-wise, relating to students of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and Australian-born Chinese children.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:They grow up in two cultures at least, and in my research I use the term. They are trapped in this conflicted space where the mainstream position them as Chinese and the Chinese community positioned them as Australians. Normally their parents are first-generation migrant and they really want their kids to be part of the Australian society. And you are Aussies, you are not Chinese. But the mainstream, the school, when they socialize with their Anglo peers, they are Chinese. There's a lot of conflicts internally, I would say as a young Australian Chinese kid, I think they're constantly navigating through multiple cultures and I think they practice different identities in different circumstances. And let's say, if this kid is in a weekend school, I think the Chinese identity is stronger and sometimes you socialize with peers of your same background. You actually don't think about those concepts, but when they socialize with their Anglo peers in the mainstream classroom, I think they are constantly reminded that you are Chinese and I think the consequence of that is you don't belong.
Speaker 1:Can I go deep immediately? This is a real common trait of mine, bo, is I go deep really quick. But I think the way that you've summarized that at the end that was really what my next question was going to be is the way that you described that so perfectly, that both sides other that young person, yeah, and then I suppose they're not viewed as belonging on either side. When we think about a young person developing a sense of identity where they're othered wherever they go, how do they find a sense of belonging in that community? Is there in your research, is there anything that you've found that has supported a young person to navigate that? Or is that just an ongoing piece of conflict that young people are facing?
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:That's a really good question. It's a complex question, right, because kids are not living in a vacuum. They have different communities. They have their own family community. They have their own school community Within the school. If they're part of a sports club, they're part of that community.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:I think I would say we need to create a support system around identity for this group of young children and start with the family, I think, growing up, because parents are the children's primary we call it primary agents for socialization Before kids went to school, and the parents need to actually help the kids to develop a clear understanding of who they are. So I think that family socialization process is very important. I think for students of diverse background, it's important for parents to confirm that element of them instead of saying, oh, you are Australians, you are not Chinese. But actually these days we rarely we see that, that approach. But in the, the fifties, during the white Australian policy era, it's very commonly seen. Migrant parents don't want kids to have any connections with their home culture or the country or region. That's why that assimilation sentiment was very strong.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:But these days, I think, and also the change of the public policy, people think, oh, multiculturalism is good, you can speak your own language. You should be proud. I think at a societal level we've made a progress. I think it's in the family. Parents should actually encourage, reinforce that in the home as well and to acknowledge that part of the children's identity. And when kids go to school and that's another sphere of the socialization right it's going to the mainstream schooling learn subject matters, learn all sorts of things. And I think the school as a community also need to help the students of diverse background to be more confident about their culture and identity. And only by combining this can we hope young persons themselves view themselves positively.
Speaker 1:I loved your response, bo, and it's making me think the layers at which identity intersects, because we see, of course, parents trying to support and trying to navigate your way through the workplace or through community or whatever it may be, and how you are perceived and how you want to be perceived, so you're navigating that. Then you've got your young person who you're sending out into the world.
Speaker 1:You're trying to raise them with a sense of their values, but they're also experiencing a different kind of experience in their environment. And so you've got that kind of intergenerational, almost back and forth, like a cyclical, symbolic, symbiotic relationship there of identity flowing back and forth and being experienced, and of course there's going to be those moments where they jar and then of course it's where they flow. But I'm just thinking then, as professionals in this industry, as schools or as people working with young people or working with multicultural communities. What a tough space to try to support people.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:It is.
Speaker 1:Every person's experience is unique.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Yeah, that's why we always say, the space we work in is like a marketplace. You have a lot of offerings, you have diverse customers, all the noises in the background, it's a messy place, but on the other hand, that's also the beauty of this work. I think we, as professionals working in this space, we are constantly learning about the nuances and under this umbrella term of diversity or multiculturalism, there's just so much more to it. Right Within one culture, there's nuances and differences and different groups, and there's so many things we need to learn.
Christopher Higgins:You mentioned there about so many things we need to learn. You mentioned there about so many different well, and we talked about the fact that let's say for a young person but I'm assuming to your point smita adults as well. This is not just young people. This can be anyone at any age and stage.
Christopher Higgins:They can belong to so many different groups and and kind of subgroups within that as well or not belong yes, and I suppose where I'm going with this is how do we help someone belong in a group or help them with their formation of identity to belong, or do we have to help with the identity formation within a group so that someone feels a sense of belonging? Or can we belong to a group and that then helps our formation of identity, especially when we might be part of multiple groups and feel like we belong to multiple or we don't? How can we do that?
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:I think I've understand.
Christopher Higgins:Let's simplify as chicken and egg.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:I always say we need a dual approach. And as an individual, I think we are responsible for our own sense of well-being, and as a community leader or a community member, we are responsible for creating a culture within that organization or community. And I think for a community or it's a company, or it's a school, or it's a classroom first of all we need to create a culture of inclusion. It's okay to be who you are. Very often we see people not just the kids, adults, everyone listening to this podcast. Think about asking yourself this question Do you feel you belong in your workplace? Can you be your wholesome self? Is that a safe space for you to open up about your struggles or who you are? So I think that's the chicken or the egg. That's the organizational element. And then we focus on individual.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:I think, as an individual, I think it's a lifelong journey of discovering who you are. And, yes, we can articulate who we are based on some labels. But I would say because identity is constantly evolving, depending on who you socialize with, depending on space, depending on time of your life. So it's evolving and we need to be aware of that. I think that's a lifelong journey and your organization or your colleagues or your community can't be responsible for all of that, and I think, as an individual, first of all, we need to try to articulate who we are and also acknowledge that it's not a static, unchangeable description of yourself, and that's okay. Sometimes, in one situation, one part of our identity is stronger. In another situation, the other part might become more prominent. We just need to embrace that kind of dynamic nature of identity and the situational nature of it.
Speaker 1:What does that mean, then? Both for structural inequity, because I think about cultures, for workplaces. The challenge it can be that we consider building our, say, cultural awareness and we do cultural awareness training and think that we're broadening our understanding of what it's like in someone else's shoes in any kind of environment. And often we think about an iceberg model of things that you see and things that kind of sit below the surface. And I'm really interested in when we think about what sits below the surface and potentially, what a experience has been for someone who comes from a multicultural background or an LGBTIQ plus background, or someone who has an experience of being a minority, an experience of being othered, and has spent a significant amount of their time navigating all that we've been talking about. So they've had that push and pull. They've potentially had their worldview shaped because of unintentional conflict or intentional. They've had that kind of experience.
Speaker 1:You can imagine that person has now emerged potentially with coping mechanisms, and it might be something that is reflected, say, for example, by looking inwardly and becoming shutting down when they see things. Or it could actually be the other way and they become fierce advocates and they're out there putting their flag forward, but I suppose, as an organisation, finding a culture that, looking below the surface on someone's worldview perhaps understanding that what's happened throughout someone's life might actually impact the way that they're contributing to a conversation their comfortability to speak up against management or to speak up in a team meeting to ask a question might actually be entirely based on experience that they've had throughout their life. We do have, I think, a responsibility to take more action in space. Is there anything that you've seen that has worked really well or that you've that you really recommend or you've seen in the research as good practice in that space?
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:I think when we work with people, everyone's experience is different. It's not realistic for us to fully understand a person, particularly at a workplace and very big organization. Think about people's relationship. I think probably is doable, more manageable, if you work within a small team or a small organization that people can really get to know each other. I think in order for, let's say, introvert team to speak up.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:You really need to create that safe space. Now the word safe space has become some sort of cliche, but actually it doesn't matter that someone they want to speak but they don't feel accepted, they precondition that they won't listen to me. I think it's really, I would say, up to everyone's responsibility, and I think it should start with the leadership. The leadership should recognize there is a need for change, should be responsible for creating inclusive culture that everyone feels safe so that they can find a way to contribute. If a leader actually can demonstrate, that can affect more people.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:At the end of the day, it's everyone's responsibility to create a safe space. We want us, yourself, to feel safe. You need to create that space for other people as well. We just need to be more empathetic. I think, and particularly in today's very disconnected world, a lot of conflicts nationally and internationally there is some lack of empathy between people, and if I don't trust you, how can I expect to be who I am and advocate for myself? Yeah, I think it's. I think it's a really big question and but I think first of all, we need to know it's everyone's responsibility to create an inclusive and safe place for everyone to be who they are and at the same time, the leadership should be taking that leadership role and start using this bottom-up and grassroots approach both ways.
Christopher Higgins:Hopefully we can start to shift that culture when you were saying earlier about the lifelong journey of are, and it's constantly evolving, and this might be a personal reflection in this moment, but it made me think about not necessarily knowing my own identity and still grappling with that and knowing that it's evolving and changing, and thinking back to who I was five years ago and it's very.
Christopher Higgins:It's very different now and I'm sure it will be different again in another five years, based on my experiences. But it made me think about how I often expect other people to know their identity. So I acknowledge within myself that I might not know it or I might not be sure about it, or it might be evolving and it's dynamic and it's not static, but I expect others to be static and I expect them to know who they are and therefore to be able to have the flow and effects that come from that. As I say, this might be a personal reflection and I'm putting it out to the room here, to both of you, smita and Bo. What do we think on this prompt of? Is that wider than that? Is there maybe something bigger and broader where we almost have different expectations of ourself and others, and particularly in relation to identity and that sense of belonging?
Speaker 1:It is a really interesting question, chris, and even as we've been having this conversation, I have been having so many deep reflections just about my own identity and the kind of journey that I've gone on. So, look, I think your question just framed some of those thoughts that I've had whirling around so well. I'm happy to share a story of my own, one that's perhaps a quite significant identity moment in my own experience, perhaps to try to answer your question. Look, I basically moved through my life feeling really clear in my head who I thought I was. My family are of proud Fiji Indian heritage and I've actually adapted that into my idea of what it means to be an Australian. I'm a Melburnian born and raised. I have an Australian accent. That's who I am.
Speaker 1:I'm very aware that might not be how I'm perceived by others, but certainly in terms of how I feel about myself, it's always felt very clear to me, and it wasn't really until I met my partner, who is a male Caucasian, he's British born and we were about to get married, that I was suddenly faced with, I suppose, how I see myself and how I wish to be seen, and it actually came up from a really simple moment of we were planning our engagement party and to just give you a bit of context, you know, growing up I don't think I ever even questioned what my wedding would look like. It was going to be an Indian wedding. I had seen pictures of my mother and I knew that's what I wanted, and thank goodness, because for my family, again, it wasn't a question we were going to have an Indian wedding. So we always knew that culture was going to be a really significant part of the day. And then suddenly, you know, here we were planning our engagement party and my partner wanted to invite his friends and I was suddenly really struck by how uncomfortable and anxious I was at the idea that the first time his friends would meet my parents they would be in Indian clothes, you know, eating Indian food, somehow fitting this kind of stereotype, when in fact you know my family are an incredibly, you know, wonderful mixture of all the places that they've lived England, new Zealand, australia and Fiji.
Speaker 1:And I just had this fear of the stereotype that has just plagued us all of our lives Assumptions of you know who we are and how we live and you just can't be more than one thing. And it suddenly hit me with that anxiety that up until that point I hadn't even realised that I had actually kept that whole side of my culture and my identity to myself. You know, even my closest friends in the world, they hadn't seen my parents in Indian clothes. That was just something I'd been unconsciously hiding for decades and suddenly I was in this position where I was asked to invite people into that space and I was really unsure, you know on how I felt about it. So you know, I think, to your question, chris, to bring it back, you know, obviously I had an unconscious expectation of myself to really know myself and, you know, to feel proud of who I am and I thought I was proud of who I was and then to have that kind of called into question you know, into question was quite unsettling and it obviously I was making a lot of judgments and assumptions for all of the people around me.
Speaker 1:You know how people were viewing my identity, none of which was actually based on an open and honest conversation. You know how people were viewing my identity, none of which was actually based on an open and honest conversation. You know, these were all narratives that I had created over time and I'm not saying that I made those narratives up because obviously I had had many experiences in my life that led me to keeping that side of my life hidden. But they were narratives very much living in my own head and so it's really interesting when I think about my identity now. Letting someone else into those narratives and those experiences is actually a really huge piece of vulnerability. You know, it almost feels like a gift. I actually feel like sharing your identity with someone is probably one of the biggest gifts you could give someone, just to be your whole self.
Christopher Higgins:I think it makes a lot of relevant points around trust, vulnerability, narratives, the things that we create in our own heads, whether they are based on previous experiences or a whole range of, maybe even unconscious things that we're not aware of.
Christopher Higgins:It brings me back to that question you asked earlier bo around, can you be your wholesome self, and what is it that helps us be a wholesome self and that trust and that vulnerability if you're feeling safe to be vulnerable as well? We've talked about that previously on the podcast. I also am drawn back to something that you said earlier bow and what you're saying this meter about the narratives. Bow, you said earlier, almost sounds like a political slogan is that the one community, proud diversity, harmonious society and it's almost like hearing around the proud celebration and in that kind of catchphrase it's almost like that reinforces our narrative as well is like that we should all know who we are and celebrate who we are, but to celebrate it you need to know it, and that's this expectation that it's static in that moment and that we're all very aware of it and that it doesn't change or flip in the moment or suddenly have these points where you go well, hold on, let me just think about this, for a minute.
Christopher Higgins:Thank you you for sharing that, Smita. Thank you for feeling safe to share that.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Yeah, so I feel very privileged to hear that identity is a very private thing, because we work in this space so we talk about identity all the time, but actually it's not actually a normal conversation you would have with someone you met for the first time. This is our second time, you know, smith. We met and we opened up, not just demonstrated. You've felt safe and comfortable sharing that very private part of your life. And think about if this is a company culture, you know how much this company can achieve if all of your staff members can just open up and share. Just back to Chris, you just mentioned about, if we look at the public discourse that, oh, you should celebrate your culture, let's say we.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Very often we can hear such comment from educators in mainstream schools telling their students of diverse background that, oh, you should celebrate your culture, you should be proud, and you encourage them to wear multicultural clothing during a particular celebration day.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:I think mindset itself shows a privilege. Okay, let me put on a very critical lens to it. Okay, why do people like to tell other people what they should be doing and I think these days people are very self-aware but encouraging, particularly if you are from a place of privilege, why you make that suggestion. Oh, you should be so proud that action itself is a practice of privilege and it's not easy for children to be proud of their home culture If they are from a culture that, if they live in a country that the West Wing policy abolished late 70s, we have a much longer history of discrimination than what we have achieved today. Having said that, we live in urban Melbourne, which is like a little bubble, I would say, compared to if you look broadly in a country, and it's not easy actually for people from marginalized group to be proud. To say it aloud we don't have the power, we don't have the confidence.
Christopher Higgins:Is it maybe a lack of conscious thinking and awareness around the struggle and the conflict and the navigate? We've used that word a few times and I like the symbolism of that as well. If we make statements like oh you should be, make statements like oh you should be proud of or we should be proud of, it doesn't acknowledge actually this person or group could have actually been on a significant journey that they've been navigating of struggle and conflict and may still be on that and all of us can be on that.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:We're not acknowledging that by making a statement like you should be proud I think, because we're talking about empathy being empathetic, I think, people who make that comment, particularly if you are from a privileged place, if you never had that lived experience firsthand to be a minority or being marginalized, as much as you want to be empathetic, there's no way you could understand that person's experience.
Christopher Higgins:It's like your earlier point. You said earlier never, truly fully understand another person. Correct, I'm not careful to understand myself. At the best of times, it's hard to get inside. Can't get inside someone else's head, so trying to understand someone else fully is very difficult.
Christopher Higgins:So to that point there about empathy is being more empathetic, having that conscious awareness that never fully understand someone else's life journey will never fully understand someone else's life experience. You'll never fully understand someone else's life experience. You'll never fully know what someone else has been through. You can think you've got a good idea, but you weren't the one that lived it, correct?
Speaker 1:And I think an important baseline of that. If we conceptualize that again with that idea of the iceberg, it is appreciating, and always when you're having that interaction with someone, that who they are and their identity is not what's above the surface, it's everything that sits below and that is a whole lifetime of experience that you may not get insight into, but that is the stuff, that's the drivers behind what might be displayed up above. And for myself, I'm always thinking about if I'm trying to support someone or if we're trying to create an environment, how is it that you can create a space that allows the things that sit below the surface to come forth if they need to, or to be safe to sit separately if they need to, but that all to sit separately if they need to, but that all of that experience is as part of that person, that we're not kind. What makes someone othered is actually a strength I like your.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:The iceberg analogy. We use that all the time when it comes to culture, but I think when we use that analogy in the context of identity, that also makes sense, perfect sense. And we can't see people's identity right, it's below the surface, but what we can see is people's behavior, which normally might be a practice of identity. We call it identity practice. We can only see identity practice, but we can't really see identity.
Speaker 1:That term, identity practice. I'm going to steal that one though.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Because the way we do things is guided by something your values, your attitudes towards that particular situation. All those multiple factors create that behavior in that particular situation. All those multiple factors create that behavior in that particular context. That practice or behavior have something below the surface that support that behavior. And I think when we're trying to be empathetic with someone, we are always sitting on the top right Through communication. I think probably is the best way trying to understand what's actually happening below the surface, probably just to be a good listener, trying to understand by creating that safe space, encourage people to share more, to bring that deep down thoughts below the surface, identity elements to the surface. Yeah, I think we create a channel between the surface and the beneath. That's through communication. I think trust we are talking very deep conversations and I feel like for our listeners out there.
Christopher Higgins:We did warn bull just before we press record that we do like to just start with the topic and then see where it goes, and it has a habit of going pretty deep pretty quickly, yeah.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Yeah, it's so deep and I think I need a nap to recharge my brain.
Christopher Higgins:We've also not got Justin Roberts here with us today, but he did make us promise on a prior episode that we would bring snacks and drinks and that we would make this a bit more of an event, especially with the afternoon sugar hit that we all need. Unfortunately, we've not done that today and I'm placing that squarely on the fact that that was Justin's responsibility so you you may very well need a nap after this, because we can't even offer you a sugar hit all good.
Christopher Higgins:Yeah, I'm enjoying the conversation well, you might be amazed to know that we've already gone for 45 minutes oh yeah, and we've gone on a bit of a journey. We've covered a fair few topics already and probably haven't even scratched the surface of that iceberg that we've been talking about.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Yeah, but I think it's a good we started the conversation and make people reflect on their own journey of self-realisation and we can have more conversations like this to continue, because, as I said, it's a lifelong journey, right, and people don't normally talk about that stuff. But I think for the sense of for our own sense of well-being, it's important to articulate who we are and trying to say that out. Actually, it's an empowering process. It's a very empowering thing to do. Think about if a young kid of multicultural background can confidently express who they are, what kind of food they eat, what kind of family culture they have, proudly and without hesitation. That's a very powerful thing, a beautiful way to summarise, that's a very powerful thing.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Beautiful way to summarise. I was thinking Simita you mentioned about. You've kept one part of your identity to yourself. If I go deeper and there must be a reason for that, consciously or subconsciously. There should be a reason for that. I think as a young student, as a young kid in school, if we can help the student, young kid to reveal that part of themselves, we can create a very positive identity for this kid and that's going to have a very positive lifelong impact.
Christopher Higgins:This is the part where we usually go around the room and ask for a bit of a key takeaway or a summary. Beau, I think you've just given us a beautiful summary, so I'm not sure if you want to add anything more to it. But, smita, any final thoughts, key takeaways for you?
Speaker 1:What an incredible conversation. Thank you so much, Beau, for going on this wild journey with us. I think I have two thoughts. Can I cheat and do two?
Christopher Higgins:Oh, this time.
Speaker 1:Chris, really cracks the whip around here. The first one is taking it back to language. I was just really reflecting, even as we were talking, how much challenge even now I'm having with articulating the questions that I wanted to ask or how I wanted to dig into the topics and just reflecting on what sits behind. That actually made me reflect that there is a language that we need to learn around talking about identity and belonging and culture, and it doesn't come naturally.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Because we don't talk about it. No one actually taught us how to describe who you are. Normally, when we do research about identity, I think as a novice researcher and you might ask this kid, what is your identity? No one can answer that question. You feel like an adult. What is your identity? No one can answer that question, even like an adult what is your identity?
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:That's why we have to come up with so many different ways to elicit that identity part, let's say, through creative practice like drawing a picture or, depending on the child's personality, they sometimes are very articulative, some are a bit more reserved. We have different ways to try to elicit that information and I think as educators we need to actually develop the corpus of identity right how to facilitate our students to articulate who they are, which is a very identity-focused thing. As a kid, you always write essays about your family. That's actually an identity practice and I remembered when I was in primary school we were always asked to write essays around my parents or my father or my mother, my family. Actually, these topics are identity-related. I think it might be helpful for educators to highlight the concept explicitly, help kids to unpack the complexity of who they are, aka identity and the reason we're doing that is because we're unpacking identity and we are helping kids to develop positive identity about themselves and it's related to their sense of well-being.
Speaker 1:So well put, as always.
Christopher Higgins:Amazing yeah amazing. That was takeaway number one.
Speaker 1:And I promise it wasn't just an excuse for me rambling through half my questions half the time. It was genuinely, I think, a journey of actually building a language, a literacy in this space, which has been a really, I think, something I'm going to take away from this conversation just personally and professionally as well, bo. So thank you so much for that. My second kind of key takeaway was you talked about emotional connection in familiarity and I suppose for me, what really resonated for me in that was then thinking about the flip side. So when there's no familiarity, when we're faced with differences, what is then elicited in that scenario and how do we actually build empathy, which you've been talking about throughout the conversation today? And so I suppose, where you see emotional connection, familiarity, perhaps the flip side is empathy and difference, and how do we embed that to our work and our spaces? We roam?
Christopher Higgins:powerful stuff I just keep coming back to. Can you some self? That for me, it keeps setting with me and not me asking, asking myself, can I be my wholesome self? But thinking about how you talked earlier, bull, about responsibility and how we have individual responsibility, but there's also the collective and that we need to build. If it's a workplace, a school, etc. We need to build a culture in that space. But thinking about that question from the lens of my actions, my behaviors, the way I practice things and how it impacts other people asking themselves that question. So I'm just thinking about how I show up in spaces and am I behaving in a way that allows others to be their wholesome self? Am I taking responsibility and building an empathy so that others can feel that safety, trust, vulnerability?
Christopher Higgins:That's a good takeaway.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Yeah, thank you, and thank you for having me. I really appreciate this opportunity to discuss those big questions, and everyone has an identity, but we rarely discuss about it. Once we start opening up and we'll be surprised to find, okay, other people might have a very similar experience as back to students of diverse background. When they open up, share about their life experiences, their aspirations, struggles, stories, and they will find, oh my God, other people. They are on the same journey as me and that itself can be very empowering.
Christopher Higgins:Dr Bo Hu, thank you so much again for giving us not just your time today, but also your thoughts, your insights, your wisdom, your provocations as well. Thank you so much. I definitely feel enriched for it and I think, for all our listeners out there to acknowledge something that you said bull, this is just the start of a conversation, yeah, and I think we will be continuing this conversation in some future episodes fantastic.
Dr Beau Hu-Jia:Thank you for being so open-minded and honest and thank you for having me to all the listeners out there.
Christopher Higgins:Thank you so much for joining us again on that's tmi, the meaningful insights podcast, and we hope to have you join us in the next episode. Stay safe and stay well.