O&B 2024 is a wrap! Thank you to everyone who joined us.
Check out the conference archive to revisit all of your favorite moments and discover new ones. All three days of O&B 2024 are available to watch for free below.
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Agenda
Click the + sign to read more about the agenda item. All times are displayed in Pacific Time.
April 25
Day One
2pm | Welcome to O&B 2024
Emcee Sarah Crowell, the Belonging Resident Company, an indigenous opening with Yuria Celidwen and others to be confirmed, will open up the conference.
2:45pm | Conference Vision with Ashlin Malouf-Gashaw
Hear from Ashlin Malouf-Gashaw, Deputy Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, on vision and goals for the conference and the larger movement of building belonging.
3pm | Belonging and the Civic We with Roberto Bedoya
Kicking off this year’s series of Belonging- and Bridge-Builder Talks, the City of Oakland’s Cultural Affairs Manager Roberto Bedoya will illuminate how place is not just a space but an idea that needs to be animated through agency and co-creation in order to build sustainable, healthy communities built on belonging.
3:25pm | Who Belongs?, with Imani Barbarin
A talk on the interdependence of disability justice and belonging, featuring Imani Barbarin.
3:45pm | Belonging is a Place We Build Together with Ruth Wilson Gilmore
A talk from iconic geographer, author, and scholar, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, one of America’s most visionary imaginations working at the forefront of building a future where care and restorative justice are the norm, and where we aim to build a world “where life is precious, life is precious.”
5:30pm | Performance by Orchestra Gold
Our opening headliner act, Oakland-based ensemble Orchestra Gold, will perform a dynamic hour of music.
April 26
Day Two
9am | Conference Opening
Duniya Dance & Drum company, emcee Sarah Crowell, and the Belonging Resident Company will open up the day with movement and togetherness to welcome us to Day Two of O&B 2024.
9:30am | Can We Remain Open? Bridge-Builder Talk with 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.
9:45am | Belonging without Othering, keynote with john a. powell and Maria Hinojosa
A conversation between celebrated journalist Maria Hinojosa and OBI Director john powell on our conference theme, Belonging Without Othering.
The conference serves as the book launch of a book by the same name, co-authored with Stephen Menendian.
The conference serves as the book launch of a book by the same name, co-authored with Stephen Menendian.
2pm | Harmonizing Belonging, with Melanie DeMore
2:15pm | Belonging Economies: An Introduction, with Hossein Ayazi
2:20pm | Solidarity, Democracy, and Debt with Astra Taylor
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.
2:45pm | 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.
3:45pm | Hoop Dancing, with Patrick Willie (Navajo)
3:45pm | 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.?
April 27
Day Three
9am | Conference Opening
Emcee Sarah Crowell will open up the day with connection, conversation, and a look at what we have in store for our closing day together.
9:20am | 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.
2:10pm | 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.
3:10pm | Bending the Global Arc toward Belonging
Our closing session will feature a conversation with Shamil Idriss, Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, and Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou on what is needed to make belonging a global norm.
4:10pm | Closing Remarks by john a. powell
4:30pm | Closing Performance, with Kev Choice and Destiny Muhammed
Oakland's legendary pianist, emcee, bandleader, and music historian Kev Choice and harpist extraordinaire Destiny Muhammed will take the stage with a choir for a collective, closing experience to send us off in harmony from O&B 2024.
The Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley brings together researchers, organizers, stakeholders, communicators, and policymakers to identify and eliminate the barriers to an inclusive, just, and sustainable society in order to create transformative change.
Copyright © 2023, Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley
Ashlin Malouf-Gashaw is the Deputy Director of Strategy and Program at the Othering and Belonging Institute. She is driven by the growth and development of people, teams, and systems. Whether in the role of mediator, community organizer, coach, executive director, or chief of staff, she has led by inviting people into liberatory practices of dialogue, bridging, authenticity, and power building. From her experience, when courageous conversation, storytelling, vulnerability, and self-reflection are paired with concrete and coordinated strategies, progress is made.
Since 2006, Ashlin has worked in a variety of capacities with the Faith in Action Network (previously the PICO National Network), equipping those closest to the pain with the tools and strategies to make structural change. She began as a Community Organizer in Colorado, then returned to her hometown of Sacramento where she served as the Executive Director of Sacramento ACT. Most recently, Ashlin was the Chief Formation Officer and then Chief of Staff with PICO California. During her tenure in organizing, she worked on countless campaigns including healthcare access, community benefits agreements, reinvestment of public funds, moving from punitive to restorative practices, immigration reform, and affordable housing, to name a few.
Ashlin received her BA in Political Science and Social Change and Development, and her MA in International Conflict Resolution. She lives in Sacramento with her husband Theodros and her 2 children Kayden and Davin.
Read more about her work here.
Read more about her work here.
Ashlin
Malouf-Gashaw
Ashlin is our guide to courses on Targeted Universalism. She also appears inBridging 2: A Conversation with Ashlin Malouf-Gashaw
Bridging 3: Two Studies of Bridging Across Power
Bridging 3: Two Studies of Bridging Across Power
john a. powell (who spells his name in lowercase in the belief that we should be "part of the universe, not over it, as capitals signify") is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties, structural racism, housing, poverty, and democracy. He is the Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, a research institute that brings together scholars, community advocates, communicators, and policymakers to identify and eliminate the barriers to an inclusive, just, and sustainable society and to create transformative change toward a more equitable world.
john holds the Robert D. Haas Chancellor’s Chair in Equity and Inclusion and is a Professor of Law, African American Studies, and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. Previously, he was the Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University where he also held the Gregory H. Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties at the Moritz College of Law. He has won several awards including the 2021 Housing Hero Award, 2021 John W. Gardner Leadership Award, and the Convergence Bridge-Building Leadership Award for 2022.
He regularly appears in major media offering expert insights on a host of issues. Recent appearances include NPR and WYNC's On The Media in an episode about free speech and the constitution, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in an episode about housing segregation, and CBS Evening News where john discussed the Institute's frameworks like Targeted Universalism. john gives frequent keynotes talks at a range of institutions such as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Washington State University, the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, Nonprofit Quarterly, Project Democracy, the Gates Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, the InterFaith Leadership Council, the Permanente Medical Group, and many more.
john has written extensively on a number of issues including structural racism, racial justice, concentrated poverty, opportunity-based housing, voting rights, affirmative action in the United States, South Africa and Brazil, racial and ethnic identity, spirituality and social justice, and the needs of citizens in a democratic society. He is the author of several books, including his most recent work, Racing to Justice: Transforming our Concepts of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.
The founder and director of the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota, john has also served as Director of Legal Services in Miami, Florida and was the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, where he was instrumental in developing educational adequacy theory. john led the development of an “opportunity-based” model that connects affordable housing to education, health, health care, and employment and is well-known for his work developing the frameworks of “targeted universalism” and “othering and belonging” to effect equity-based interventions.
john has lived and worked in Africa, where he was a consultant to the governments of Mozambique and South Africa, and has also worked in India and Brazil. He is one of the co-founders of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and serves on the board of several national and international organizations. He is also a member of the New Pluralists. john has taught at numerous law schools including Harvard and Columbia University.
Follow john on Twitter @profjohnapowell and read his blogs on HuffPo.
john a. powell (who spells his name in lowercase in the belief that we should be "part of the universe, not over it, as capitals signify") is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties, structural racism, housing, poverty, and democracy. He is the Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, a research institute that brings together scholars, community advocates, communicators, and policymakers to identify and eliminate the barriers to an inclusive, just, and sustainable society and to create transformative change toward a more equitable world.
john holds the Robert D. Haas Chancellor’s Chair in Equity and Inclusion and is a Professor of Law, African American Studies, and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. Previously, he was the Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University where he also held the Gregory H. Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties at the Moritz College of Law. He has won several awards including the 2021 Housing Hero Award, 2021 John W. Gardner Leadership Award, and the Convergence Bridge-Building Leadership Award for 2022.
john holds the Robert D. Haas Chancellor’s Chair in Equity and Inclusion and is a Professor of Law, African American Studies, and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. Previously, he was the Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University where he also held the Gregory H. Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties at the Moritz College of Law. He has won several awards including the 2021 Housing Hero Award, 2021 John W. Gardner Leadership Award, and the Convergence Bridge-Building Leadership Award for 2022.
He regularly appears in major media offering expert insights on a host of issues. Recent appearances include NPR and WYNC's On The Media in an episode about free speech and the constitution, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in an episode about housing segregation, and CBS Evening News where john discussed the Institute's frameworks like Targeted Universalism. john gives frequent keynotes talks at a range of institutions such as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Washington State University, the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, Nonprofit Quarterly, Project Democracy, the Gates Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, the InterFaith Leadership Council, the Permanente Medical Group, and many more.
john has written extensively on a number of issues including structural racism, racial justice, concentrated poverty, opportunity-based housing, voting rights, affirmative action in the United States, South Africa and Brazil, racial and ethnic identity, spirituality and social justice, and the needs of citizens in a democratic society. He is the author of several books, including his most recent work, Racing to Justice: Transforming our Concepts of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.
The founder and director of the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota, john has also served as Director of Legal Services in Miami, Florida and was the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, where he was instrumental in developing educational adequacy theory. john led the development of an “opportunity-based” model that connects affordable housing to education, health, health care, and employment and is well-known for his work developing the frameworks of “targeted universalism” and “othering and belonging” to effect equity-based interventions.
john has lived and worked in Africa, where he was a consultant to the governments of Mozambique and South Africa, and has also worked in India and Brazil. He is one of the co-founders of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and serves on the board of several national and international organizations. He is also a member of the New Pluralists. john has taught at numerous law schools including Harvard and Columbia University.
Follow john on Twitter @profjohnapowell and read his blogs on HuffPo.
john has written extensively on a number of issues including structural racism, racial justice, concentrated poverty, opportunity-based housing, voting rights, affirmative action in the United States, South Africa and Brazil, racial and ethnic identity, spirituality and social justice, and the needs of citizens in a democratic society. He is the author of several books, including his most recent work, Racing to Justice: Transforming our Concepts of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.
The founder and director of the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota, john has also served as Director of Legal Services in Miami, Florida and was the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, where he was instrumental in developing educational adequacy theory. john led the development of an “opportunity-based” model that connects affordable housing to education, health, health care, and employment and is well-known for his work developing the frameworks of “targeted universalism” and “othering and belonging” to effect equity-based interventions.
john has lived and worked in Africa, where he was a consultant to the governments of Mozambique and South Africa, and has also worked in India and Brazil. He is one of the co-founders of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and serves on the board of several national and international organizations. He is also a member of the New Pluralists. john has taught at numerous law schools including Harvard and Columbia University.
Follow john on Twitter @profjohnapowell and read his blogs on HuffPo.
john a.
powell
john guides our Introduction to Othering & Belonging's Key Frameworks course.
Additionally, he appears in the courses named below.
Bridging 1: The Risk & Possibility of Bridging, john a. powell and Judith Butler in conversation
Bridging 2: john a. powell on power and john a. powell on levels of bridging
Structural Racism: White Space, Black Hood
Bridging 2: john a. powell on power and john a. powell on levels of bridging
Structural Racism: White Space, Black Hood
Mónica Guzmán is Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America, founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, an organization working to build a more curious world; and author of I Never Thought Of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.
Moni is the inaugural McGurn Fellow at the University of Florida, working with researchers at the UF College of Journalism and Communications and beyond to better understand ways to employ techniques described in her book to boost understanding. She was a 2019 fellow at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, where she studied social and political division, and a 2016 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where she studied how journalists can better meet the needs of a participatory public.
Her work has been featured in The New York Times, the Glenn Beck Podcast, Reader's Digest, BookTV, and EconTalk, and she is an advisor for Starts With Us and the Generations Over Dinner project.
Before committing to the project of helping people understand each other across the political divide, Mónica cofounded the award-winning Seattle newsletter The Evergrey and led a national network of groundbreaking local newsletters as VP of Local for WhereBy.Us.
She was named one of the 50 most influential women in Seattle, served twice as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes, and plays a barbarian named Shadrack in her besties' Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
Visit her website to learn more about her work.
Sarah Crowell is a dancer and choreographer who has taught dance, theater, mindfulness and violence prevention for over 35 years. She recently left her position as the Artistic Director at Destiny Arts Center in Oakland where she served in different capacities including Executive Director for 30 years. She founded and co-directed the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company, which was the subject of two documentary films, and won the National Arts & Humanities Youth Program Award. Sarah has facilitated arts integration, violence prevention, cultural humility and team building professional development sessions with artists and educators since 2000, both locally and nationally. She is the recipient of many awards including the KPFA Peace award, the KQED Women’s History Local Hero award, and the National Guild for Community Arts Education Milestone award. She is a four-time finalist for a Tony Award for Excellence in Theater Education.
Ashley Gallegos works as the Belonging Coordinator at the Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley. Her work is at the intersection of belonging research, application, and societal change. Ashley’s work centers the application of OBI’s unique conception of belonging which is rooted in both the feeling or sense of belonging and the necessary structural design for belonging. Ashley works closely with the director of the Institute to advance initiatives of belonging, currently focusing on Places of Belonging. This initiative works with high impact collaborators nationally and internationally to align and advance belonging in varying contexts.
Ashley creates and circulates belonging educational materials, amplifies belonging practices in motion, and uses her understanding of the Institutes frames of Belonging, Bridging and Targeted Universalism to support initiatives. Ashley engages in complex considerations of how belonging moves with and positively contributes to our world's biggest necessary shifts like that of global human rights, climate justice, cross-movement alignment and much more. Ashley is one of three co-facilitators at Belonging a Weekly Practice, a free, low barrier virtual belonging space open to all. Registration information for the sessions is available here
Before working with OBI, Ashley worked within public health and healthcare to advance health equity and racial equity in application. She directed state wide equity coalitions and believes in the power of network models to co-create momentum beyond any one entity's capacity.
While born in Southern California, Ashley was raised in Belen, NM, grew as an adult in Denver, CO, and found her way to the place where her spirit feels aligned in Oakland, CA. In her free time, Ashley enjoys spending time with loved ones, building community, experiencing and contributing to the arts, reading, being near water and maintaining a spiritual groundedness.
Dr. Charles Chip Mc Neal is an award-winning, international educator, researcher, civic leader & activist – engaging in transdisciplinary practice across art-forms and genres, with a focus on arts, educational equity, social justice, community engagement, and cultural competency. He guides government agencies, non-profits, and schools on change-management, creative collaboration, program creation, equitable arts policies, diversity, and organizational cultural competency.
Mc Neal has over 30 years of senior leadership experience and flexibly negotiates the intersection between creativity, new technologies, and professional learning. He has trained in multiple culturally responsive practices including; restorative justice techniques, social-emotional learning, and Teaching Tolerance curriculum (from the Southern Poverty Law Center). He is an accredited Integrated Learning Specialist and a certified Oral Historian. A frequent and sought-after conference presenter, Mc Neal has lectured on arts, education, social justice, multiculturalism, and equity for The Edinburgh International Festival, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, and Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Mr. McNeal is the first-ever Director of Diversity, Equity and Community for the San Francisco Opera. A pioneering leader in the field of arts, McNeal is ostensibly the first director of diversity for an opera company in the United States. Mr. McNeal has operationalized a new department in a major arts organization for the second time. In his role, he leads internal and external initiatives aimed at developing diverse audiences, creating a safe, and diverse working environment and facilitating the further advancements of the organizational mission. He is tasked with creating a culture of belonging and acceptance, we’re diverse peoples on value and inspiration in the arc of Opera. He is guided by the goals and objectives outlined in the 2019 Strategic Plan – to place develop diversity, and equity inclusion at the core of arts and business practice. Mr. McNeal works organization-wide to advise, consult, and mentor on diversity and equity initiatives.
He also continues training teaching artists, conducts arts research, develops novel initiatives, and advises on artistic content, culturally responsive pedagogy, creative collaboration and more. He designs and curates accredited professional development training for credentialed educators who partner with the San Francisco Opera.
A celebrated dance educator, Mr. Mc Neal is the former Director of Education for San Francisco Ballet where he established the distinguished, San Francisco Ballet Center for Dance Education, engaging over 30,000 people annually through 1,500 culturally diverse events.
Mc Neal served as a Transformative Learning Coach, Leadership Advisor and Arts Integration Specialist for Alameda County Office of Education where he developed culturally responsive, inquiry-based, social justice curriculum. He is a founding member of the San Francisco Unified School District’s Arts Education Master Plan Advisory Committee. McNeal is on the Leadership Council of Create California, a statewide-advocacy consortium, where he Chairs the Equity Committee – working to creating a sustainable, equitable, arts learning eco-system for the state of California.
Mr. Mc Neal holds two bachelor’s degrees – in psychology, and sociology from Excelsior University, and a master’s degree in education from Lesley University. Dr. Mc Neal holds a Ph.D. in Transformative Studies in Education from the California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco. Mc Neal’s research focuses on Critical Pedagogy, Culturally and Linguistically Responsive studies, and Artistic Inquiry and lies at the intersection of arts, cultural responsiveness, and educational equity as he devises solutions to the pressing issues of education reform and racial equity in the arts.
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