Taiye Selasi

TEDGlobal 2014

Don’t ask me where I’m from, ask where I’m local.

When someone asks you where you’re from … do you sometimes not know how to answer? Writer Taiye Selasi speaks on behalf of “multi-local” people, who feel at home in the town where they grew up, the city they live now and maybe another place or two. “How can I come from a country?” she asks. “How can a human being come from a concept?”

An added perspective - by Muna Omar

Look out for:

  • Invention of the sovereign state
  • “All experience is local…All identity is experience”
  • Three-step test: rituals, relationships, restrictions
  • Intention of the question
  • Countries represent power
  • What is diversity?
  • The myth of “going back”
  • “All of us are multi”