Toward Belonging: Kickoff Dialogue June 16
Event Information
About this event
This is the first in a new series of dialogues focused on how we can work together to realize more fair and inclusive societies, take care of our planet, and insist on a world where there is no “them,” only a new and bigger “we.”
For the past year the Othering & Belonging Institute has been working with core partners in Europe—More in Common, Counterpoint UK, SciencesPo Paris, and Queen Mary of University—along with a growing network of social change partners to connect work across geographies and disciplines that can mount a challenge to rising authoritarianism, widening inequality, and politics based on hate, exclusion, and division.
The covid19 pandemic has exacerbated all of these dynamics while also offering a new set of threats. And the global demonstrations against the centuries-old pandemic of racism—triggered by the police killings in the United States of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many more—opens up possibilities for new responses and orientations of our movements, policies, and strategies that build long-term, sustainable solidarity toward belonging.
Watch the livestream on the following channels:
Speakers include:
john a. powell, Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute and a Professor of Law, African American, and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley
Catherine Fieschi, Director of Counterpoint UK, a comparative political analyst and studies populism, risk, political and social identities, and institutions.
Mathieu Lefèvre, CEO and a co-founder of More in Common, who previously co-founded Make.org and served as the Executive Director of New Cities
Abdul-Rehman Malik, journalist, educator, and cultural organizer. Yale Divinity School and Yale University Council of Middle East Studies.
Featuring a spoken word performance from Muneera Pilgrim, international poet, cultural producer, writer and broadcaster. Co-founder of the Muslim hip-Hop and spoken word duo Poetic Pilgrimage.
The Toward Belonging initiative is a partnership with the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, More in Common, Counterpoint UK, Sciences Po Paris, and Queen Mary University of London.
Details about this initiative and all future events in this series at belonging.berkeley.edu/towardbelonging
#TowardBelonging
Organizer Othering & Belonging Institute
Organizer of Toward Belonging: Kickoff Dialogue June 16
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. We are a diverse and vibrant hub generating work centered on realizing a world where all people belong, where belonging entails being respected at a level that includes the right to both contribute and make demands upon society and political and cultural institutions.
The Othering & Belonging Institute responds to issues that require both immediate action and long-term strategy. The Institute engages in innovative communications, arts and cultural strategy, and strategic narrative work that attempts to re-frame the public discourse from a dominant narrative of control and fear towards one that recognizes the humanity of all people, cares for the earth, and celebrates our inherent interconnectedness.
