Rosenverse
War Stories LIVE! Tamara Hale

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

War Stories LIVE! Tamara Hale

Gold
Monday, March 30, 2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Share the love for this talk
War Stories LIVE! Tamara Hale
Speakers: Tamara Hale
Link:

Summary

Tamara from Longmont, Colorado, shares her story about the intersection of bodily modifications, identity, and cultural expectations in professional environments. As a researcher accustomed to adapting her appearance for different cultural contexts—from wearing a headscarf in East London mosques to adopting a Peruvian accent in Peru—she discusses an incident in Tokyo where she removed her piercings to fit Japanese business norms. She contrasts this with her California casual tech background where piercings were embraced. Despite her sacrifices, she encounters a product manager wearing a nose stud, which prompts her to question authenticity and cultural expectations. With insights from her interpreter, she learns the customer perceives her as the serious business leader, regardless of her piercings. Tamara reflects on how these adaptations are acts of respect, survival, and agency, especially for marginalized groups, and how they lead to continual self-reinvention and humility in navigating identity across cultures.

Key Insights

  • Bodily modifications are often strategic adaptations to bridge cultural and professional divides.

  • Researchers frequently change their appearance and behavior to gain access and respect in varied cultural contexts.

  • Identity is fluid and shaped by context rather than fixed or purely authentic.

  • Marginalized groups often modify their bodies and practices for protection and to navigate exclusionary spaces.

  • Corporate norms vary widely, as seen between conservative financial firms and casual tech environments.

  • Visual markers like piercings can be interpreted differently depending on cultural perspectives and customer perceptions.

  • External interpretations of professionalism can undermine personal self-image and agency.

  • Adaptations to bodily presentation are not necessarily betrayals of self but acts of respect and survival.

  • Collaborating with cultural insiders (e.g., interpreters) provides crucial nuanced understanding in cross-cultural work.

  • Continuous bodily and identity adaptations contribute to discovering new versions of oneself over time.

Notable Quotes

"I’ve done the headscarf when recruiting door to door at the mosques of East London."

"I traded my butch boots for kitten heels when interviewing scientists who adhere to biblical beliefs of creationism."

"I’ve literally relearned how to walk."

"It’s probably a good idea to remove the piercings my interpreter confirmed."

"To some people, acts of bodily modification may seem inauthentic, maybe even a betrayal of my unique self."

"Women, people of color, LGBTQ folks, and other minorities are deeply familiar with having to modify bodies and bodily practices as steps for protection and self preservation."

"My heart sank. What the F? Clearly this guy didn’t understand."

"What was important was that in the eyes of the customer, I conveyed the part authentically."

"Whatever image I had attempted to create was always subject to interpretations that I could not control."

"I have learned not to hold on too tightly to the ideas I’ve constructed about myself."

Ask the Rosenbot
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks Day 2
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Ash Brown
Silver Linings: What DesignOps Learned in the Shift to WFH
2020 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Mac Smith
Measuring Up: Using Product Research for Organizational Impact
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Satyam Kantamneni
Do You Have an Experience Vision?
2023 • Enterprise Community
Theresa Slate
Why Changing Hearts & Minds Doesn’t Work When Promoting DE&I Efforts, but Checklists Do
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Uday Gajendar
Making the Invisible Visible: The most critical deliverable isn't always the design
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Jennifer Kong
Journeying toward AI-assisted documentation in healthcare
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Erin Weigel
Get Your Whole Team Testing to Design for Impact
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Daniel Korczynski
From generic to contextual research insights with AI | Live Q&A
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Phil Hesketh
Designing Accessible Research Workflows
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Panel Discussion: Communicating the Value of DesignOps
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Mitchell Bernstein
Organizing Chaos: How IBM is Defining Design Systems with Sketch for an Ever-Changing AI Landscape
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Johnny Michaelsen
Measure Behaviors, Not Results
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Malini Rao
Lessons Learned from a 4-year Product Re-platforming Journey
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Savannah Carlin
Don't botch the bot: Designing interactions for AI
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Adam Cutler
Discussion
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold

More Videos

Dantley Davis

"Designers who come out of US tech need to pivot quickly toward broader inclusion or risk being outpaced by other markets."

Dantley Davis

Leadership & Diversity—A Fireside Chat with Dantley Davis

September 17, 2020

Frances Yllana

"The reason some of these tools aren’t embraced right now is a little bit of fear and lack of understanding."

Frances Yllana Jorge Arango Maria Taylor Briana Thomas

The Big Question about Impact: A Panel Discussion

September 24, 2024

Jim Kalbach

"The journey is from guilt to atonement—not necessarily forgiveness—but being integrated into society."

Jim Kalbach

Peace is waged with sticky notes: Mapping Real-World Experiences

June 14, 2018

Sarah Kinkade

"Transformation is new ways of thinking and eventually doing; we won’t have all the answers at the start and that’s okay."

Sarah Kinkade Mariana Ortiz-Reyes

Design Management Models in the Face of Transformation

June 8, 2022

Reginé Gilbert

"Collaboration is key. I'm never alone in a Peloton class, even at 4:30 in the morning."

Reginé Gilbert

Asking the Right Questions: Life, Hope and Moving Forward During the Pandemic

June 10, 2022

Robin Beers

"The machine lens gave us hierarchy, bureaucracy, and a focus on efficiency and control, but it sidelines holistic thinking."

Robin Beers

Navigating organizational systems: Rethinking researcher’s role in driving change

March 13, 2025

Paul Ford

"We’re shipping all the time and shipping really big things often without really caring if anybody uses it."

Paul Ford

New work, new words: A glossary for AI

June 9, 2026

Dan Donald

"A design system is never a done thing, it’s a continuous evolution of best practices."

Dan Donald

Design Systems as a Vehicle for Systemic Change

June 1, 2023

George Abraham

"All our components can be data bound so the developer can point to any data source like CMS or JSON to populate UI elements naturally."

George Abraham Stefan Ivanov

Design Systems To-Go: Reimagining Developer Handoff, and Introducing App Builder (Part 2)

October 1, 2021