Mass Liberation & Climate Justice Toolkit

The climate crisis and mass incarceration are two crises that have shared roots and affect many of the same communities, yet are often talked about and organized around as separate issues. What connects them? How can we talk about them in ways that resonate and advance solutions to both?

Social Housing in California

Social housing has come to encompass a variety of programs and financing schemes, but all fundamentally move away from a reliance on private, for-profit motives driving housing insecurity. In 2023, California will launch a study of social housing in...

Transformative Research Toolkit

Introduction We have seen and participated in transformative research strategies that defeated proposed jail expansions, won millions of dollars for community-prioritized programs, and built new community-led organizations that changed a political...

Advancing Equitable Community-based Transportation Planning

In response to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while reducing transportation inequities, the California Air Resources Board launched two clean mobility grant programs that fund community transportation needs assessments, planning, and...

Housing Insecurity and Policy Views in Orange County, CA

This brief summarizes findings from our survey research with Orange County residents on their experiences of housing insecurity, and housing policy views.

Principles for Reframing the National Security Narrative

Our public discourse is seeded with dangerous and counterproductive ideas concerning national security that are so deeply embedded we may often be unaware that we, as story tellers, are invoking or reinforcing them in our own narrations. Thus, over...

The Need for Transformative Federal Action

This is a research brief to accompany the 2022 survey report we published entitled Aligning Federal Policy to Local Needs. Download PDF. As we emerge from the peak of the global pandemic, there is a great need to ensure that any opportunity...

Islamophobia in Europe

This Reading Resource Pack was developed by researchers from the Global Justice Program at the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, as part of its larger project documenting and countering Islamophobia.

Islamophobia in Asia-Pacific

This Reading Resource Pack was developed by researchers from the Global Justice Program at the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, as part of its larger project documenting and countering Islamophobia.

Single-Family Zoning in the Fresno Region

Introduction The authors would like to thank Joshua Cantong, Data Analyst at the Othering and Belonging Institute for their valuable insights and contributions. This brief report continues our series investigating the extent of restrictive and...

Targeted Universalism Bibliography

The framework of targeted universalism has been a compelling framework for work in many different contexts. The sources referenced in this bibliography reflect this diversity of uses and application areas. Targeted universalism is a framework that focuses on policy and program design...

Bridging and Power Building Paper Series

This series looks at the longstanding art and science of organizing, in relation to today’s social dynamics. Our premise is that for us to build power, we need to bridge across lines of difference in ways more radical than ever before. This series is authored by a working group from across California...

Concluding Thoughts on Bridging and Power Building

At the outset of the B4B working groups’ journey, we envisioned a set of trainings, analytical and strategizing tools, and shared bridging tenets that shape our practice (toolbox), politics, and culture. If we are successful, we will see...

Community Organizing, Electoral Work, and Bridging

The most basic premise of electoral work is grounded in breaking. Campaigns must draw a line in the sand between themselves and their opposition, providing a firm “us-and-them” distinction that is crystal clear. In the elections themselves of course, there are winners and there are losers...

Coalitions: Vision, Bridging, Belonging

Coalitions, at their best, ensure that we are stronger than the sum of our parts. If a coalition is defined as a set of distinct groups joining together for a shared goal, we might expect that this, by its nature, involves bridging...

Explore Othering and Belonging

The Power of Bridging

A research-backed guide for building bridges across difference in any area of our lives, from esteemed civil rights scholar john a. powell. We don't want to live in a society in turmoil. In the US, 93 percent of people want to reduce divisiveness...
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Depolarization Day

Want a chance to hear from experts studying the root of what’s driving us apart and how we come back together? Eager to build the skills to listen empathetically, elicit narratives of connection, and interview professionally? Looking for a chance...

Belonging Without Othering

The root of all inequality is the process of othering – and its solution is the practice of belonging We all yearn for connection and community, but we live in a time when calls for further division along the well-wrought lines of religion, race...