A/67/287 institutions and ways of life. They also protect access to tangible and intangible cultural heritage as important resources enabling such identification and development processes. Cultural rights encompass a broad range of issues, including self-expression and creation; information and communication; language; identity and simultaneous belonging to multiple, diverse and changing communities; the pursuit of specific ways of life; education and training; taking part in cultural life, and the conduct of cultural practices. A. Culture, identity and gender: a complex interface 1. Individual and collective identities 8. Cultural identity is “important for the well-being and dignity of individuals and communities”. 8 Individual identities promote characteristics that distinguish one person from another, while collective identities privilege similarities among the individual members of a group. 9. However, “each individual is the bearer of a multiple and complex identity, making her or him a unique human being and, at the same time, enabling her or him to be part of communities of shared culture” (A/HRC/14/36, para. 23). Collective identities never encompass all the characteristics of any individual: they are formed on the basis of privileging certain parts of individual identities. Whenever people use the pronoun “we”, referring to a collectivity, they select those markers of personal identity that highlight their link with a particular group of people. Collective identity plays a central role in concepts and processes of inclusion/ exclusion that define who we are and who we are not; who the other(s) is/are; what we can do and what we cannot do. 10. Belonging does not confer equality, however, and every “collective identity” is in a constant state of flux, being defined and redefined in response to external factors and internal reflection. Collective identity thus entails contestations over meanings and definitions, and is always linked to the underlying structures and dynamics of power related to accessing and exercising control over economic, political and cultural resources. 9 11. Identities, individual and collective, are informed by values, beliefs, convictions, languages, knowledge and the arts, institutions and ways of life, but equally by other aspects of human life, such as professional training; economic, social and political engagements; urban or rural environments; wealth or poverty; or, more generally, the particular geographical, socioeconomic and cultural context of a person’s life. This is equally true of women and men. It is of vital importance that individuals not be forced to identify themselves in terms of a singular aspect of their identity, such as being female, or of a particular ethnic, religious or linguistic background. Everyone is constituted of a diversity of selves involved in “a constant __________________ 8 9 6 Yvonne Donders, Towards a Right to Cultural Identity?, School of Human Rights Research Series No. 15 (Antwerp, Intersentia, 2002), p. 39. Farida Shaheed, “Citizenship and the Nuanced Belonging of Women”, in Scratching the Surface: Democracy, Traditions, Gender, Jennifer Bennett, ed. (Lahore, Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2007). See also Nira Yuval-Davis, The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contestation (London, Sage, 2011). 12-45930