• Podcast
  • October 16, 2025

john a. powell interviews Columbia Journalism Dean Jelani Cobb

On Oct. 16, 2025, OBI Director john a. powell interviewed Columbia Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb about his new book, Three or More is Riot, and the climate at his university amid the attacks being waged against it by the Trump administration...
  • Blog
  • October 16, 2025

Is Civil Society the New Battlefield for Democracy?

Changes in the political order—globally and nationally—are part and parcel of human history. In 2025, the process of becoming less and less inclusive and democratic is seemingly leaving no country unscathed. The arc of history is bending in the...
  • Press Release
  • October 9, 2025

OBI publishes city-level data on Black-White disparities

BERKELEY, CA: UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute has released a new tool designed to track progress and setbacks for Black residents at the municipal level across recent decades. The dashboard highlights disparities in key areas such as...
  • Blog
  • October 9, 2025

A Belonging Story

This is the second in a series from director john powell on ongoing assaults on our democracy and communities, and how we may think about, respond to, and confront them. In my first piece for this series, I touched on core norms I believe many of us...
  • Blog
  • October 8, 2025

Fighting Forward Essay Series

FIGHTING FORWARD is a new essay series OBI is releasing over the month of October authored by director john powell on the ongoing assaults on our democracy and communities, and how we may respond to and confront them. Essay 1: What We Share The...
  • Video
  • October 7, 2025

An evening with john a. powell

An evening with john a. powell on October 6, 2025, centered on challenges facing southern Oregon and the possibilities of creating bridges and working together to address our most critical problems.
  • Blog
  • October 2, 2025

What We Share

This is the first in a series of discussion pieces we’re releasing this month from director john powell on ongoing assaults on our democracy and communities, and how we may respond to and confront them.
  • Publication
  • October 1, 2025

The Roots of Structural Racism Project [2025 Update]

Note: This is our 2025 update to the our report published in 2021. Click here to view the original. -- The Othering and Belonging Institute is pleased to unveil a major update and extensive addition to our “Roots of Structural Racism” project...
  • Publication
  • October 1, 2025

Comparing Major Measures of Racial Residential Segregation in the United States Over Time

Introduction The authors have many people to thank, beginning with Arthur Gailes, Phuong Tseng, Chih-Wei Hsu, Joseph Ahrenholtz, Ipso Cantong, Peter Matingly, Karina French, Abby Steckel, Zoya Gheisar, Varun Fuloria and Shahan Shahid Nawaz. Racial...
  • Press Release
  • October 1, 2025

Landmark Berkeley segregation report updated with latest data

BERKELEY, CA: A landmark 2021 report from UC Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute which found racial residential segregation in the United States was getting worse by the decade received a major update Wednesday, with new data, mapping features...
  • Publication
  • October 1, 2025

Diversity and Segregation

Introduction Segregation is a complicated, nuanced concept, and one that has eluded simple definition and universal measure despite decades of intellectual effort. Some scholars believe that segregation is really a composite of five concepts, while...
  • Video
  • September 28, 2025

The Forum with john a. powell

On September 28, 2025, Professor john a. powell joined Dean Malcolm Clemens Young at The Forum at Grace Cathedral for a conversation on Belonging Without Othering. In this dialogue, powell explored the urgent need to bridge across lines of race, faith, and ideology at a time of deep social division.
  • Blog
  • September 25, 2025

Housing for Belonging

Join us in learning from UC Berkeley’s graduate students in two new policy memos on housing policy for belonging, adapted from their much longer student projects! These memos offer lessons for advocates, funders, legislators, and other change-makers...
  • Publication
  • September 25, 2025

Policy Approaches to Addressing the Intersections of Incarceration & Homelessness

This memo is a part of the Community Power & Policy Partnership’s Housing Policy for Belonging, a project aimed at uplifting the great student work happening across UC Berkeley’s campus. We are so grateful to these authors for wrestling their 40 page...
  • Publication
  • September 25, 2025

From Vulnerability to Resilience

This memo is a part of the Community Power & Policy Partnership’s Housing Policy for Belonging, a project aimed at uplifting the great student work happening across UC Berkeley’s campus. We are so grateful to these authors for wrestling their 40 page...

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E-Newsletter Archive

An Archive of past issues of our bi-weekly newsletter.
Dec
2
  • December 2, 2025, 7 p.m. (CST)

Power of Bridging: An evening with john a. powell and Catharine Richert

The Bush Foundation and MPR News are excited to welcome john a. powell, the inspiring author of “The Power of Bridging: How to Build a World Where We All Belong” to the historic Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 2, 2025. We look forward to an evening of conversation and community building—and that it inspires you to find ways to build bridges across differences in your everyday lives.
  • Blog
  • September 2, 2025

Our policy on publishing blog & opinion pieces

Consistent with our mission and values, as a multi-disciplinary research center that seeks to advance a world of belonging without othering, the Othering & Belonging Institute (OBI) conducts research, develops narrative strategy, and supports...