Public space is essential for building a culture of belonging, but creating and preserving spaces for equitable public use often requires powerful advocacy and elaborate partnerships between community coalitions, city leaders, and developers. As...

Municipal land use—and zoning regulations in particular—has transformed in recent years from an esoteric local development matter into a hotly debated and fiercely contested public policy issue. There are many academic and mainstream periodical...

We are facing a moment in history that requires us to develop new organizing modalities. We have to come together to block the threats we are facing to our democratic values, we need to bridge across differences to foster broad-based movements with...

This session dove into Bridging for Democracy (B4D), a project that is developing strategies through which grassroots power-building organizations meaningfully bridge across racial, ideological, and urban-rural divides to strengthen democratic norms...

Data is powerful, allowing crucial information about the prevailing social and material realities of our world to be conveyed. It can be used to advance very different and sometimes opposing goals. Indeed, data is often leveraged to identify issues...

This session showcases multiple expressions of belonging, illustrating the benefit of belonging being advanced through an array of organizations at different scales and locations. The session offered a mix of stories, insights, and diverse approaches...

Our panel discussion featured immigrant rights advocates from Mexican, Latino, Vietnamese, Jamaican and Chinese migrant communities who have been instrumental in organizing for the rights of immigrants and refugees in the United States. Through short...

Austerity is not an abstract concept–it is a key feature of our day-to-day lives. Austerity–translated through public finance–changes our communities’ libraries, water and sanitation systems, education, and roads. These public systems and systems of...

The UC Berkeley High School Ethnic Studies Initiative (HSESI) is a collaboration between the American Cultures Center, Department of Ethnic Studies, and History-Social Science Project intended to develop curriculum materials to support Bay Area...

On June 26th, john powell was the keynote speaker at the National League of City’s National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials (NBC-LEO) Summer Conference. He discussed how othering, belonging, and targeted universalism relates to Black...

On June 20, 2024 OBI director john a. powell gave the George H. Frederickson Lecture at the National Academy of Public Administration’s 2024 Social Equity Leadership Conference in Stamford, Connecticut. In light of recent attacks on DEI initiatives...

See our playlist below which includes all our videos from the 2024 Othering & Belonging Conference, which took place April 25-27 in Oakland, CA! To select a video from the playlist click on the button in the top right corner of the video player...

OBI director john a. powell was the keynote speaker for the launch of Belonging Colorado, an bold statewide initiative that aims to bring together Coloradans across lines of difference in order to foster greater belonging across the state so that all...

Register here Reimagining Urban Planning is a monthly series of public webinars that focuses on the edge of innovation in urban planning and policy. Traditionally Urban Planning has had a long legacy of harming communities of color, developing and...

In this June 4 "Edges in the Middle" discussion OBI Global Senior Fellow Bayo Akomolafe engages with author, sociologist, and environmentalist Ashish Kothari to discuss the sociomaterial, political, spiritual, and civilizational events shaping our...