Agenda

Registration Opens
The Commons Opens

If you have not yet registered, pick up your badge at the Registration Station inside the HJK Arts Center, Explore The Commons or enjoy a session of meditation before the conference starts at 9:00 am. 

Sufi Meditation and Movement

Begin your day with a relaxing and energizing guided Sufi meditation (Tamarkoz) practice with Michelle Ayazi.

Conference Opening 

Bongo Sidibe and Blibi Eric Gore with Duniya Dance & Drum Company, Emcee Sarah Crowell, and the Belonging Resident Company will open up the day with movement and connection, grounding us for Day Two of O&B 2024. 

Bridge-Builder Talk, by Scott Shigeoka

Scott Shigeoka will discuss the values and practices, such as deep curiosity and the willingness to stay open to each other’s story, that will help us hold onto the inherent humanity of all, not by denying our differences or what makes us unique, but by recognizing that insisting that fundamentally we all belong is the only way to build a shared future. 

Belonging without Othering,
Opening with john a. powell and conversation with Maria Hinojosa

This opening conversation between celebrated journalist Maria Hinojosa and OBI Director john powell will unpack the radical proposition of creating a world based on belonging, without othering.

The conference also serves as the book launch of Belonging Without Othering, co-authored by john powell and Stephen Menendian. 

Coffee Break 

Pick up coffee and tea as you head to breakout sessions

Breakout Sessions

Eight 90-minute concurrent workshops will be held across the O&B 2024 campus. 

1. Expressions of Belonging
2. Democracy in Crisis: The Courage to Re-Humanize One Another 
3. Global South Feminist Visions Toward Belonging 
4. Storytelling & Somatic Solutions for Belonging
5. Land, Culture, and Belonging: Place-based Community Advocacy
6. Seeding a Global Network for Migration and Belonging in 2024 and Beyond
7. Using Data to Advance Belonging without Othering
8. DEIB: Vision, Framing, and Action in a Post-SFFA World

Lunch

Pick up your hosted lunch and find a place to relax, connect, and recharge among a wide variety of areas on the O&B 2024 campus including grassy and outdoor spaces at the Oakland Museum of California; the outdoor deck of the Kaiser Building; the banks of Lake Merritt; and throughout the HJK building. Don’t miss offerings in The Commons, the Belonging Bazaar merch station, conference bookstore; and other ways to relax, connect, and recharge

Film Screening: "From Here"

Come enjoy an excerpt from the award-winning documentary, “From Here,” followed by a talkback with the director, Christina Antonakos-Wallace in conversation with Usha Srinivasan about cultural organizing and visionary approaches to the global migration debates.

Location: North Ballroom

Live Music with Alphabet Rockers - HJK Deck

These Grammy award winning musicians, who "create a culture of belonging through listening and love at any age" will bring their infectious, playful music and message to the lunch hour. 

Movement Class, with Duniya Dance and Drum Company - Commons Community Stage

Duniya Dance & Drum Company will be holding a class on the Commons Community Stage. Joti Singh accompanied by drummer Bongo Sidibe explores cultural confluences of joy and justice in this dance workshop integrating Bhangra from Punjab and dance and music from Guinea, West Africa.

Harmonizing Belonging,
with Melanie DeMore

Belonging Economies:
An Introduction, with Hossein Ayazi

Mainstage Talk:
Solidarity, Democracy, and Debt

Acclaimed author and organizer Astra Taylor will share the intersections of the diverse areas of her work in examining, writing, and organizing around democracy, solidarity, and co-founding America’s first union of debtors. 

Spoken Word, with Michelle "Mush" Lee

Powerful spoken word poet, activist and Executive Director of Youth Speaks, Michelle "Mush" Lee will share an original poem that directly connects with the Othering and Belonging bridging framework. 

Mainstage Panel:
Building Belonging Economies

What would an economy built on belonging look like? Speakers Nwamaka Agbo of the Kataly Foundation and Restorative Economies Fund, Jovan Scott Lewis of UC Berkeley, and Nick Tilsen (Oglala Lakota) of NDN Collective will discuss what must be cultivated or negotiated if we are to co-create new forms of economic systems. Moderated by Wendy Ake of the Othering & Belonging Institute. 

Hoop Dancing,
with Patrick Willie (Navajo)

Award-winning Navajo hoop dancer, Patrick Willie, will share traditional hoop dancing and dynamic storytelling.

Closing Keynote:
A Greater Story of We, with Maurice Mitchell

Renowned social movement strategist Maurice Mitchell,  a visionary leader in the Movement for Black Lives, and now National Director of the Working Families Party, will give our day's closing keynote on new formations and ways of being and working with each other that are needed to confront the current era of rising authoritarianism, climate emergency, toxic inequality, and widespread precarity and fragmentation. Maurice will share what he has learned through organizing and his own evolution as a leader about what is needed to build a bigger “we”—that it is only by working together, across identity and issue area, that we can truly build and realize the promise of multi-racial, pluralistic democracies.

Mainstage Close, with Sarah Crowell

Salsa Rueda, Commons Community Stage

José Richard Aviles will be leading a session of Salsa Rueda in the Commons. Salsa rueda is a traditional Cuban form of salsa danced in a circle and in community. In addition to having fun this session invites us to be reflective and conscious of the ways we show up in circles and for each other both in movement and in our movements.

Conference Doors Close 

After Hours: Friday Evening
Offerings from OBI partners 

• The Oakland Museum of California—Off the Grid. Head next door to the Oakland Museum for their celebrated Friday night Off the Grid series featuring live music, food trucks, and late night access to galleries. Find more information here. 
• Cal Performances - Five-time Grammy winner Angélique Kidjo is playing for one night only in Berkeley as part of the Cal Performances 23/24 Season. Tickets and more info here.
• Annual Be a Kid! fundraiser hosted by RYSE, in Richmond, CA, with the theme RYSE to the Future: Creating the World Young People Deserve. Check this site for tickets and information.

Registration Opens
The Commons Opens

Sufi Meditation and Movement

Begin your day with a relaxing and energizing guided Sufi meditation (Tamarkoz) practice, led by Michelle Ayazi.

Dance Brigade

Taiko drumming by Dance Brigade will open up the day.

Conference Opening

Emcee Sarah Crowell will open us up with connection, conversation, and a look at what we have in store for our closing day together. 

Destiny Arts Center, Martial Arts performance

Destiny Arts Center's mission is to inspire and ignite social change through the arts. Destiny's dynamic martial arts demo team will share the virtuoso of their martial arts practice while incorporating strategies for peace and wellbeing. 

A Greater Story of We: 
An Introduction, with Basima Sisemore

The third planning track of O&B 24, "A Greater Story of We" will be introduced by Basima Sisemore, Global Justice Program Senior Researcher at the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley. Basima will share a grounding for the final day of the conference which brings into conversation themes of power of narratives, the illusion of the other, bridging, and pathways toward creating a collective we.

Mainstage Panel:
Collective Memory, Identity, Trauma, and Belonging

What is the role of collective memory in creating identity and belonging? Is it even possible to imagine a belonging that does not require flattened identities that pit one group against another? And most urgently, what are the narratives that can support bridging and solidarity, and repair and rehumanization, even during this time of unimaginable destruction, division, and dehumanization.

Cecilie Surasky of the Othering & Belonging Institute will discuss these questions with three of our sharpest chroniclers, observers, and witnesses: Palestinian historian Sherene Seikaly, acclaimed author and activist Naomi Klein, and Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Viet Nguyen. This rich conversation will connect the people, places, struggles, and history of Europe, Israel/Palestine, Vietnam, Asia, and the United States. It will bring into sharp focus how structures of othering such as colonialism, US militarism, ethnonationalism, racism, and patriarchy strip us of our humanity and mobilize fear and trauma to create an other. And most importantly, it will explore the liberatory possibilities of reconceptualizing identity and aspiring toward belonging without othering.

Coffee Break 

Pick up coffee and tea as you head to breakout sessions.

Concurrent Breakout Sessions

A set of eight 90-minute sessions will be held across the O&B 2024 campus. 

1. Leaning into Paradox: How We Can Block, Bridge & Build Our Democratic Future Together
2. Food Sovereignty: Toward Belonging and Climate Justice
3. Xenophobia, Resistance, and the Future of the Immigrant Rights Movement 
4. Belonging Contradictions: Lived experiences across race, gender and sexuality
5. Resisting Austerity: Keeping Public Infrastructure Public
6. Cultural Equity & Operationalizing Belonging: Recent Efforts from Oakland
7. Applying Targeted Universalism: Case Studies from the Field
8. Bridging Through High School Ethnic Studies

Lunch

Lunch provided for all O&B 2024 participants. Pick up lunch and find a variety of places to eat including the outdoor spaces at the Oakland Museum of California; the outdoor deck of the Kaiser Building; the banks of Lake Merritt; and throughout the HJK building.

Healing Garden: Reflecting on our Collective Grief

The OMCA is pleased to offer a reflective gathering on collective grief. All are welcome to join us for this peaceful experience in OMCA's beautiful gardens. Wellness practitioners Josie Santiago and Veronica Ramirez will lead us in the sacred ritual of mandala creation to cultivate a space of healing. With an open heart, we will come together to reflect on our loss, global grief, or simply soak in the connectedness of community. Grief is a universal experience and when we connect with others, it can be healing. We hope you will join us.

Location: OMCA Garden

Michelle "Mush" Lee and Youth Speaks -  
Commons Community Stage

Michelle "Mush" Lee, Executive Director of Youth Speaks, will host a group of three talented Youth Speaks poets who will share exciting, thought-provoking poems about belonging without othering. 

Play Marimba & Neblinas del Pacifico: HJK Deck

These two groups of award-winning musicians will come together to add extra flavor to your lunchtime on the deck overlooking Lake Merritt, with joyful Afro-Colombian marimba and percussion music that weaves a rich tapestry of polyrhythms and multi-part harmonies. 

Film Screening:
Black Girls Play, and Talk Back

Come watch the documentary short "Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games", recently shortlisted for the Oscars and nominated for a NAACP Image award. Michèle Delgado Stephenson, who directed the short, will be introducing the film and answering questions following the screening. . 

Book Signing: Viet Thanh Nguyen

During the lunch hour, Viet Thanh Nguyen will sign copies of his award-winning book The Sympathizer and other recent books. Time to be confirmed. Look for the signs in the concourse for location. 

BANDALOOP Performance, HJK Arts Building

Aerial artistic group BANDALOOP celebrates the human spirit, nature, and communities through dance that uses climbing technology to expand and challenge what is possible. Come see BANDALOOP on the wall of the HJK Building.

Mainstage Panel:
Long Bridging for Belonging and Democracy

Panelists DeAngelo Bester, Myriam Méndez Montalvo, Pastor Bob Roberts, Omar Salha, and moderator, Yuna Blajer de la Garza will offer practical applications for long bridging and practices across social and institutional differences to help us see the value of bridging as a prerequisite condition for belonging. More about this panel here.  

Closing Panel:
A Global Arc Toward Belonging

Our closing session will feature a conversation with Shamil Idriss, Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou, and Avila Kilmurray on what is needed to make belonging a global norm.

Closing Remarks:
with john a. powell

Closing Performance:
Kev Choice, Destiny Muhammad, and choir

Oakland's legendary pianist, emcee, bandleader, and music historian Kev Choice and harpist extraordinaire Destiny Muhammad will take the stage with a choir for a collective, closing experience to send us off in harmony from O&B 2024. 

Following our mainstage close, swing by The Commons for one final chance to explore the exhibits, make a poster, take a selfie or group photo on The Commons Community Stage, buy merchandise, or purchase a book, or just dance your way out to our curated playlist. 

Conference Doors Close