Of the themes I've researched so far, this was probably the one that threw up the most varied results. I'd assume this is because the topic is broad, but I knew the angle I wanted to examine it from: How do we perceive ourselves? And how do others perceive us?
Explore the full mind map here.
I probably should have expected this to sink into the psychological and the philosophical, but just how much surprised me. The first thing I came across was identity as the "self" - how we as people construct our own concept of who we are through four different avenues of understanding.
My understanding of this system is this:
Self-concept: The understanding of oneself throughout time - who you've been, who you are, who you may be in the future - "Who Am I?".
Self knowledge: Understand of one's own thoughts beliefs and sensations - "What Am I Like?".
Self esteem: Beliefs about oneself as well as emotional states, i.e, how one feels about things in their life.
Social Self: The understanding of oneself based on positioning in society - how do one's actions fit in with those surrounding you? How are you perceived by others?
As this is all psychology, there's a lot of variation when it comes to defining these different sections. I'm sure there's depth to each one that I'm missing, but the deeper I started diving the more complex things became - each one seems to influence the other, e.g. the social self can determine behaviours, and those behaviours can impact our idea of self-knowledge, which impacts self-concept, and so on.
A second arm of research presented itself to me: how do others perceive us? And how does what we believe about ourselves impact the way that we perceive others?
The first half of this was simpler to narrow down - others perceive us based on our extrinsic (outward) behaviours, not our intrinsic (internal). Even if we were to communicate our intrinsic understanding of ourselves, that can only be perceived through that communication. It is impossible to fully get inside someone else's head.
What was interesting, however, is how our own understanding of ourselves can impact how we understand others. An interesting paper I browsed through proposed that men and women perceive people differently based on their gender due to what is expected of them in society - with the blanket statement that men tend to be more dominant and women more nurturing, it effects how we perceive each other through this lens.
My research into art on this topic was also really interesting. I found three independent female artists who have explored the idea of identity through their art.
Freida Kahlo expressed her own perception of her identity through self-portraiture.
Lorna Simpson explores her identity as a black woman through photo-artistry.
Adrian Piper examines how external perceptions of a person can affect their mental health.
Instagram artist Annegien (fetching_tigerss) is a graphic artist and photographer who I found when visualising identity later on. Her pictures often confront societal standards and focus on the true self within.
This is generally a complex topic, but from what I've found so far has been interesting. The idea of identity is one that runs through almost every story that's told. The semantics of how we understand our own identity and others' is fascinating.