Whether we emphasize our religious, political or national identity, or our gender and sexuality; we seem to attach a lot of value to describing ourselves and who we are. In this episode, Marc and Thirza (program makers at NEWConnective) zoom out from all these separate aspects that constitute identities. We enter into a conversation with Jay Dehnert (chair of VU Pride) about being someone, and aspiring to be someone, and the individual versus the communal self.

NEWConnective is an organisation at the Vrije Universiteit, which develops events around life's bigger questions, identity and spirituality. Marc and Thirza are both part of the NEWConnective team. Jay Dehnert is chair of VU Pride and student of Communication Sciences. In this podcast we discuss the following questions:

• What part of ourselves do we emphasize?
• Do we consider ourselves as individuals or as part of communities?
• What happens when others have conflicting convictions about what we understand ourselves to be?
• What people do we aspire to be?

Do you want to join the conversation? Then find us during our next On Campus Edition, at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.The Connective is a production of NEWConnective and VU Campusradio.

The song you hear come and go during the episode is 'Winter Tropics' by Jacob Montague; we've acquired the necessary music license at MusicBed.