Othering & Belonging Institute
Featured Belonging Organization/Event 1
Dear City Person,
In this weekly newsletter, I have the third post of each month feature an organization or an event that tackles issues of urban belonging and opportunities to get involved.
If you know about an organization or event that you would like me to feature in a future newsletter, then please feel free to privately reply to this email or you can post a public comment on my Substack post.
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One of the many things that caught my attention about UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute (OBI) is that its director spells his name in lower case. The first few lines of his bio explains the reason behind this:
“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")…” —Othering & Belonging Institute
While I speak a language that lacks the concept of capitalizing letters, I haven’t thought about how a simple linguistic detail like this can reflect a culture’s understanding of the self and its relationship with everyone and everything else.
While this detail may seem mundane, I believe an organization’s impact is more powerful when its mission and vision are reflected in the identities and personal beliefs of those who lead it. This is especially important for an entity like OBI that addresses how power structures can contribute to exclusion and ways to remedy that so that everyone belongs.
The only other person I can think of who spells their name in lower case is bell hooks, though she has a different reason for doing so. You can learn more about her by clicking here. Let me know if you can think of anyone else by replying privately to this email or publicly on my Substack.
Unlike some organizations that focus on addressing belonging through individual solutions to social disconnection (like advising people to have shared family meals or keep in touch with friends), OBI goes further than that. It shares research, art, and approaches to tackle the ways that policies (whether at a country or city or workplace level), urban design, economic inequality, differences in access to healthcare and housing, among other examples can contribute to certain groups of people becoming excluded from society.
OBI further offers resources on how to “bridge” groups of people across their differences, no matter how entrenched, to work together toward shared goals and transform their views of each other. I have found that some entities that do similar bridging activities can often silence or minimize difficult conversations about oppression and power differences between the groups involved. This is why I find OBI’s understanding of bridging to be refreshing and much needed in countries experiencing political polarization.
“Belonging, as OBI defines it, means having a meaningful voice and the opportunity to participate in the design of political, social, and cultural structures that shape one’s life — the right to both contribute and make demands upon society and political institutions. At its core, structural belonging holds a radically inclusive vision because it requires mutual power, access, and opportunity among all groups and individuals within a shared container (such as a society, organization, club, etc).” —Othering & Belonging Institute
Free Public Resources by OBI:
1) OBI University:
A free self-paced online certification program where anyone can learn the theory and practice of how to build communities where everyone belongs. I have recently started this program myself. So far I am loving how it breaks down each complex concept in digestible terms and includes reflective exercises. Click here for more information and to sign up.
2) OBI Podcast:
A free podcast about structural belonging that can be accessed on OBI website, SoundCloud, and Apple Podcast: https://belonging.berkeley.edu/podcast-0
3) OBI blog:
https://belonging.berkeley.edu/resources
4) OBI Journal:
A free academic, artistic, and policy journal that can be accessed here: https://belonging.berkeley.edu/othering-belonging-journal
OBI Events:
1) OBI annual conference:
Tends to take place in person in Berlin, Germany or Oakland, California, US. In past years they had done it remotely or hybrid. As far as I’m aware, the upcoming conference will be fully in person in Oakland, California from April 25-27, 2024. Anyone who is a scholar, artist, activist, philanthropist, leader, or other community member is welcome and will find both academic and non-academic offerings and art exhibits. https://belonging.berkeley.edu/conference/oakland-event
2) Other events:
Click here to find more events hosted by OBI or sign up for their newsletter to stay up to date: https://belonging.berkeley.edu/events
Opportunities to get involved:
Annual part time paid summer fellowship for both traditional and non-traditional students as detailed in the link below. Applications are closed for this year but check back for when they reopen. Some years it was offered fully remotely: https://belonging.berkeley.edu/summer-fellowship
Submit an article, essay, video, audio, or art for the OBI journal. More details here: https://www.otheringandbelonging.org/submissions/
Next week’s newsletter will feature my reflections on my conversation with readers of my last newsletter about People Watching which you can find here. I will only mention general insights and not names of people. I will also not include private replies to me so I can honor people’s privacy.
The lower case lettering is really interesting to me as I hadn't heard of it before except in the context of my daughter telling her English teacher that she doesn't like to use capitals as the lower case letters will feel smaller, unequal somehow?!
This sounds fascinating and is much needed. I just followed their podcast and hope you'll write more about the program as you go through it.