The Democracy & Belonging Forum is launching its year-long Network Catalyzers Program in 2025 to support and resource Forum members in launching virtual or in-person communities that explore specific challenges and opportunities related to othering, belonging, bridging, and democracy. 

Using belonging without othering as an orienting frame and bridging as a guiding practice, selected catalyzers will launch communities that aim to build trust, foster new relationships, cultivate bridging skills, and develop a collective understanding of ongoing social and political dynamics in Europe and North America. While some communities will only sustain for the duration of this program, we hope that others will exist beyond the 12 months.

As Europe finds itself in the midst of profound identity shifts—including a rapidly aging population coupled with increasing migration from non-white, non-Christian nations—the question of who belongs has become more urgent than ever. Indeed, these shifts are not happening without backlash, as previously-fringe authoritarian populist movements are finding great success stoking fear of demographic change to advance their exclusionary and anti-democratic vision. To better understand both how we got here and where we might go next, scholars john a. powell and Hans Kundnani will come together for a timely conversation on identity, racialization, othering and belonging in the European context.

Drawing from Kundnani’s Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire, and Race in the European Project and powell’s Belonging Without Othering: How We Save Ourselves and the World, this conversation will address the challenges of defining what it means to be "European" in an era where narratives of identity and nationalism are becoming ever more exclusionary. Within a context of rising polarization and mistrust, how can we advance more expansive narratives of European identity rooted in multiplicity, rather than race, religion, or nationality, and without collapsing into false narratives of sameness or artificial colorblindness? How might we advance practices of bridging and belonging even as othering continues to rise—and where is this already happening?

This conversation is jointly hosted by the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt and the Democracy & Belonging Forum, a program of UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute. 

Join us Wednesday, March 29, 2023 (8:00 AM - 9:00 AM PST / 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM CET) for our next event in the ongoing series The Edges in the Middle, where scholar and activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Global Senior Fellow Bayo Akomolafe will explore Black identity, Black excellence, and the limits of seeking inclusion.