<aside> 👋 Welcome to my belonging and othering notes from the book Design for Belonging by Susie Wise. Please check out the book and the website!

I, Rosie Sherry, read the book last year and took a bunch of notes, but I then promptly forgot about it until Ece Kurtaraner posted her notes on LinkedIn. So I tidied them up and here we are!

</aside>

<aside> ℹ️ This is a Notion doc that you can also Duplicate and re-use for yourself.

</aside>

Acknowledging that belonging is a feeling is a powerful way to start the work of designing for belonging.

Whilst you can’t design a feeling, they are personal, you can learn to recognize how and when feelings arise.

We can then design things to positively influence these feelings:

• rituals to bring us together
• spaces to keep us calm
• roles to create a sense of responsibility
• systems to make us feel respected
• communications that create understanding

Belonging…

Belonging is:

https://twitter.com/rosiesherry/status/1564567605800681472

• being accepted
• being invited to participate
• being part of something
• opportunity to show up as yourself
• raise issues and confront harsh truths as a full member

A culture of belonging…

• is built everyday in the behaviors of a group
• the accumulation of meanings
• when no one is watching
• develops from everyday acts

Belonging involves:

• you
• identities
• groups
• communities
• gender
• places
• work
• race
• time

Belonging feels:

• seen heard
• invited
• in a good place
• alive
• part of something
• honest
• comfortable
• cosy
• effortless

Qualities of belonging:

• well-being
• safety
• authenticity
• familiarity
• connectedness
• access
• growth
• place

Belonging is important…

• the confidence that comes from belonging helps you try things that might be hard or scary on their own and nearly impossible without it.
• our feelings of belonging happen in a real time and space, it’s useful to ask yourself when and when you feel a sense of belonging.

Architecture of belonging…

• people
• land
• history
• legacy of discrimination

Quotes

<aside> ⭐ Belonging is the invitation to be your full self, however that looks. It is the opportunity—no matter who you are—to learn, live, and love, to be encouraged, and allowed to develop as you and as part of groups that develop and celebrate your identities, needs, and contributions.

Susie Wise, Design for Belonging

</aside>

<aside> ⭐ Belonging is a real factor in having confidence to believe in oneself and in one’s ability to do hard things.

</aside>

<aside> ⭐ Currently in our nation Americans of all colors feel bereft of a sense of ‘belonging’ to either a place or a community. Yet most people still long for community and that yearning is a place of possibility, the place where we might begin as a nation to think and dream a new about the building of beloved community.

— bell hooks

</aside>

<aside> ⭐ Human learning is socially constructed: we come to understand the world through our interactions with others. Feeling part of a community of learners is a powerful motivator.

— Camille Farrington

</aside>

<aside> ⭐ Belonging occurs when we tell others what gift we receive from them.

— Peter Block

</aside>

<aside> ⭐ Belonging happens when people feel safe, seen, and accepted.

— Christine Wong Yap

</aside>

Six key conversations for building belonging

by Peter Block

1. invitation
2. possibility
3. ownership
4. dissent
5. commitment
6. gifts

The Six Conversations - Peter Block

Othering

“Othering” is a broadly inclusive conceptual framework that captures expressions of prejudice and behaviors such as atavism and tribalism, but it is also a term that points toward deeper processes at work, only some of which are captured by those terms.

Source:

The Problem of Othering: Towards Inclusiveness and Belonging - Othering and Belonging

Othering is…

• treating people from another group as different and inferior to your own
• shows up in systems which have been designed to make some people feel less invited.
• refuses to let you be yourself
• cues: who is featured, who is promoted, who accesses space
• belittles, puts identities above others or disempowers people
• othering normally happens at home, community, systemically
• minimize othering damage by pay attention to whose belonging is being supported, or not.

Othering feels:

• unwelcome
• reduce/diminish yourself
• projected upon
• invisible/erasure
• uncomfortable
• disconnected
• where do I belong?

Designing moments of belonging…

Moments are experiences. Not just a measurement of time

To start thinking about how to design belonging, consider exploring your own moments of belonging.

🎟 The invitation - how do you invite people in?