"Where are you from?"
My fellow humans often ask me where I am from. I don't have a simple and clear answer to that because the country where I was born, my ethnicity, my nationality and my place of residence are all different. At times I am tempted to contemplate how all of these or my "culture", whatever it may be, affect my mode of being and report this in my autoethnography. At this point it would be pure speculation since so many things intertwine. I notice that concrete experiences affected my life more than "culture".
To reduce myself to any one of these aspects (place of birth, ethnicity, nationality or place of residence) would be inauthentic. Perhaps it is natural and normal for people to try to make sense of their fellow others, and somewhat simple answers could be helpful. At the same time, there is a possibility that people may resort to stereotypes.
"The Sun is my Father, the Earth is my Mother, the World's my country, and all Men are my relations." (John Toland, quoted in M.P. Levine)
Reference
Levine, M.P. (1994) Pantheism, ethics and ecology. Environmental Values, 3(2), pp. 121-138.