What does it mean to be British?

Hybrid Identities Research

My initial plan for this was to research the main causes of hybrid identities in the UK and create some examples to portray these. However, this felt very manufactured and not really representing the actual people of Britain. 

I then thought the best idea would be to send out an anonymous survey to people to fill out. I thought about this a bit more but I felt that the responses I would be getting, although about a personal topic, would feel very personal. I want to show the people in my book as real people so if I have no visuals or information about their personality then I don't feel it would really work. It would be mimicking the box-ticking process that this publication is trying to break away from. 

My final solution, the one I went ahead with was to ask people who I already knew to fill out my questionnaire. This way, I have an idea about their personality, appearance and sometimes their way of life. If I use the information given to me in the survey responses, I am going to make sure that the final outcome does not directly represent them because it is a personal thing to talk about how you identify yourself and I understand that people wouldn't want this directly publicised. Using primary research to inform the backstories I am going to write will mean that they are based on real people, I think this gives the book more grounding than just manufacturing all of the material myself. Also, using people that I know shows that it is a really common occurrence for people to have some form of a hybrid identity. 

This is the survey I sent to people. 

I’m making a small publication looking at hybrid identities and aiming to challenge perceptions of what it means to be British. 

Any information that ends up being included in the book will not be traced back to you. 

If you feel uncomfortable answering any of these questions please don’t feel like you have to. Participation on any level would be appreciated. 

1. List the nationalities, cultures, ethnicities, languages and religions you feel you identify with on some level.
2. Which of these do you feel you identify with the most and why? If none of them have a significant impact then please say so.
3. Is there anything about your family that has had an influence on your answer to question one? (employment, religious upbringing, immigration, relationships, etc)
4. List all of the countries you have ever lived in during your life time.
5. When asked what nationality you are, what would be your response?
6. What do you think it means to be British?
7. Are you a British Passport holder? (or eligible to hold a British Passport)

Reportage Illustration

I want the book to adopt a reportage style, if that is actually a thing. Basically, I want to illustrate the book as if I had directly interviewed someone and I had written down their exact response, I could have drawn them and maybe parts of their surroundings. I think this will make the book feel more personal and relatable to the reader. Obviously the information in the book will be partly constructed but the basis of it is really genuine.    

Image wise, I want to have a portrait of each person, I will use reference imagery for this but not of the actual person I surveyed. I feel drawing the exact person but manipulating their words is unfair. If one thing is going to be manipulated then the other should be too. At least because I know these people I know I won't be choosing an appearance that strays too widely from what they actually look like. I just don't want them to be recognisable. 

Provoking Thought

When I was thinking about what I want this book to achieve, I was thinking about using it to provoke thoughts. This made me think about one of my hotdog books which I was going to develop into a book of questions about society that people don't seem to question.  I really like the idea of using questions to get the reader to really think about the topic. Aside from the 'speech' of the people in the book, I think the only other wiring I will use will be phrased as a question. I need to figure out what exactly to ask and when to get the maximum impact. (What does it mean to be British? What does being British mean to you? What is the future for national identity?)