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Bridging Urban-Rural Divides with Joseph Bubman · Partnership Work

0:00
Joe: The action and the relationships go together because, as it turns out,
0:05
Joe: the more you work together to solve a problem with people who are different
0:09
Joe: from you, the stronger relationship and trust you're able to build with them.
0:14
Joe: And similarly, the stronger relationships and trust you're able to build with
0:18
Joe: people who are different from you, the more you're able to work together to solve problems.
0:31
Paul: Welcome to Partnership Work, where we explore what it takes to move from isolation
0:36
Paul: to action. I'm Paul Kuttner.
0:39
Paul: After the 2016 presidential election, the deep divisions in American society
0:44
Paul: that it highlighted, there was a boom in efforts to build bridges and facilitate
0:48
Paul: dialogue between people of different backgrounds and political beliefs.
0:52
Paul: My guest today was similarly inspired, but the approach he took was a bit different than most.
0:58
Paul: Because Joseph Bubman had spent years doing peacebuilding and conflict resolution
1:02
Paul: work around the world, and in 2016 he asked what it would look like to use some
1:07
Paul: of those successful peacebuilding practices here at home.
1:11
Paul: This led him and his colleagues to launch Urban Rural Action.
1:15
Paul: They started by focusing on bringing together urban and rural communities,
1:20
Paul: but the work quickly expanded to address the many ways that we are divided by
1:24
Paul: race, religion, age, class, politics, and geography.
1:29
Paul: I don't know much about international peace building so I was really excited
1:33
Paul: to have Joe on the show. I was not disappointed.
1:36
Paul: Joe and I talked about his experiences abroad and the lessons he carries with him from that time.
1:41
Paul: He describes how he began translating peace building practices to the US context
1:46
Paul: and the limitations of initiatives that focus only on dialogue without also
1:51
Paul: creating opportunities to build capacity and take action.
1:54
Paul: Joe tells the story of his organization's evolution from early experimentation
1:59
Paul: into what is now a network of local hubs across the country.
2:03
Paul: And he shares some concrete tools and frameworks he's picked up along his journey.
2:08
Paul: If you're enjoying partnership work, you can sign up for our free Substack newsletter
2:12
Paul: on our website, partnershipwork.org.
2:15
Paul: And when you have a moment, please share this podcast with one other person who might like it.
2:20
Paul: That's how we find our audience. And now, here's Joe.
2:25
Paul: Joe Bubman, thanks for joining me on Partnership Work.
2:28
Joe: Thanks so much for having me, Paul.
2:31
Paul: So there's so much I want to talk about with you today, but let's set the stage.
2:36
Paul: So I want you to imagine you're at a party or a family reunion or something
2:40
Paul: like that. You're talking with someone who doesn't know anything about the work you do.
2:43
Paul: How do you describe what it is that urban rural action does?
2:47
Joe: I think I prefer to imagine the party than the family reunion.
2:51
Joe: I appreciate the question nonetheless.
2:54
Joe: I think the tagline for urban real action is quite useful. Reduce division, unite America.
3:01
Joe: And I think it's useful because if you live in the United States today,
3:05
Joe: you recognize that it feels a lot harder to coexist, maybe, than it once did.
3:13
Joe: It feels like conversations on tough topics are harder. It feels like
3:20
Joe: It's no longer just about disagreement on policies it's about demonization, dehumanization
3:28
Joe: of people who are different from us. So urban rural action is about bringing
3:33
Joe: people together across our differences to build relationships to engage in better
3:38
Joe: more constructive conversations where we can understand one another and to take
3:42
Joe: action to strengthen our communities,
3:46
Joe: and the action and the relationships go together because as it turns out,
3:52
Joe: the more you work together to solve a problem with people who are different
3:56
Joe: from you, the stronger relationship and trust you're able to build with them.
4:01
Joe: And similarly, the stronger relationships and trust you're able to build with
4:05
Joe: people who are different from you, the more you're able to work together to solve problems.
4:11
Paul: Excellent. I love that. Actions and relationships.
4:14
Paul: So I want to get in kind of the details of what that looks like later on,
4:18
Paul: but I want to start with you because I know the organization and the work you
4:20
Paul: do, it has some deep roots and
4:23
Paul: things that you and some of your colleagues were involved in years ago.
4:27
Paul: So you actually started in conflict resolution and negotiation working in places
4:32
Paul: like Kenya and Guatemala.
4:34
Paul: Could you tell us a bit about that work? Like, what were you doing?
4:39
Paul: And maybe give us an example of one of the projects that you would have worked on at the time.
4:44
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. The work that I did for a number of years was work that could
4:52
Joe: be characterized as peacebuilding, which means working at the community level.
5:00
Joe: In conflict zones or regions where communities are trying to emerge from conflict
5:09
Joe: and build a more peaceful society or where there are risks of violent conflict
5:15
Joe: emerging and escalating.
5:17
Joe: Working in those communities to build
5:20
Joe: more peaceful societies where there's
5:24
Joe: not only the absence of violence which is
5:27
Joe: what Martin Luther King Jr. described as
5:30
Joe: negative peace but where there is justice and equality for all and economic opportunity,
5:37
Joe: what he characterized as positive peace where everyone can thrive by coexisting
5:43
Joe: and cooperating across differences. And so
5:48
Joe: I'll actually share two examples. In Kenya, I spent three months in early 2011,
5:55
Joe: a few years after that country had suffered some really significant election-related violence.
6:02
Joe: The work there was trying to advance reconciliation, to be able to reckon with the past,
6:10
Joe: reckon with violence that had been perpetrated by community members affiliated
6:16
Joe: with certain ethnic groups, and that had killed humans and livestock,
6:23
Joe: and in many cases, neighbors.
6:25
Joe: And so the work there was really about engaging community members and community
6:32
Joe: leaders and tribal leaders in conversation and dialogue for the sake of understanding
6:37
Joe: and repairing broken trust and improving relationships.
6:41
Paul: How do you go about doing that, especially as an outsider? Like,
6:44
Paul: what does that look like for you to support that process?
6:47
Paul: And how do you even kind of enter into that situation?
6:50
Joe: Well, I really appreciate you highlighting that piece.
6:54
Joe: One of the shortcomings of some peacebuilding approaches is when someone from
7:02
Joe: outside of a context sort of enters in and assumes that they know better and
7:09
Joe: tries to dictate what folks who you're trying to help should be doing.
7:13
Joe: And that is rife with all sorts of flaws.
7:16
Joe: And it's based on sort of assumptions that are grounded in arrogance.
7:21
Joe: And the work I was doing, I don't think I mentioned, was with Mercy Corps.
7:26
Joe: And Mercy Corps is an international, non-governmental organization that responds
7:31
Joe: to humanitarian emergencies.
7:33
Joe: Promotes economic development and implements peace building programs like the
7:38
Joe: ones that I'm describing. Something like 95 percent of Mercy Corps team members live and
7:44
Joe: work in the communities where they are supporting these types of programs.
7:51
Joe: I mean there there were so many
7:53
Joe: layers. I was far removed, in fact. So just to be a little bit more concrete
7:58
Joe: about it, because I think your question is really insightful, Paul,
8:02
Joe: the dialogues I was referring to, to advance reconciliation were in many cases led by tribal leaders,
8:11
Joe: maybe faith leaders, maybe with involvement of young people,
8:16
Joe: maybe some business owners.
8:18
Joe: And those conversations were largely organized by local community-based organizations,
8:26
Joe: nonprofit organizations that Mercy Corps partnered with.
8:30
Joe: So Mercy Corps' role was largely to provide some technical support around how
8:39
Joe: you might structure these conversations to provide financial support.
8:42
Joe: And then my role as sort of a U.S.-based,
8:47
Joe: well, I mean, at that time I was sort of living in Kenya, but as an American
8:52
Joe: with a background in conflict resolution negotiation was to support the Mercy
8:56
Joe: Corps team, which was supporting the local partner, which was supporting the local leaders.
9:00
Joe: So it's not as though I was leading conversations about reconciliation.
9:04
Joe: You know, there are limits to what someone well outside of a context can reasonably
9:13
Joe: hope to achieve when you're talking about conflict transformation.
9:16
Joe: One of the best practices is really locally led peacebuilding.
9:21
Joe: And the conventional wisdom, which I think has been developed and emerged over
9:29
Joe: generations, is that the people
9:31
Joe: who are closest to a conflict are the best positioned to address it.
9:34
Joe: And I think that that type of awareness and humility is what is reflected in
9:41
Joe: Urban Rural Action programming,
9:43
Joe: because we believe that community members are the best position to decide what
9:49
Joe: type of action and solutions are going to work best in their community to make
9:53
Joe: their community safer and stronger and more welcoming for all.
10:09
Paul: So I sidetracked you a bit.
10:11
Joe: Well, yeah, you were asking about examples, and I just want to share a very
10:15
Joe: different type of example of a peacebuilding program,
10:18
Joe: which was a land dispute resolution program in rural Guatemala in the spring of 2011.
10:27
Joe: And the idea there was that there are a lot of property disputes in Guatemala,
10:33
Joe: in part because historically there haven't always been good processes and measures
10:41
Joe: for determining where one household's land boundary ends and where a neighboring
10:48
Joe: household's property starts.
10:50
Joe: There are also disputes between large landowners and less financially secure
10:57
Joe: households and families who might be living on that land.
11:01
Joe: And these conflicts often turn violent and it can result in the loss of life
11:08
Joe: or the destruction of land.
11:09
Joe: And so this program was about helping families
11:13
Joe: and community members and landowners resolve conflicts over land and ensuring
11:22
Joe: that those agreements result in proper land titling and land ownership such that the land,
11:30
Joe: which is really fertile and provides opportunities for growing and harvesting crops,
11:35
Joe: can be utilized to its maximum potential.
11:38
Paul: And was that also with Mercy Corps?
11:41
Joe: That was also with Mercy Corps. And one of the things that I was troubled by
11:48
Joe: with that particular program, Paul, that I think a lot about is that
11:55
Joe: the way that those conflicts were resolved was
11:58
Joe: really by an almost exclusive reliance on engineers to conduct sort of GPS measurements
12:06
Joe: that were meant to sort of pinpoint exactly where land boundaries were meant
12:13
Joe: to historically kind of end and start.
12:17
Joe: I think it worked fine when that was attainable.
12:22
Joe: But of course, there are a finite number of engineers and there's a large number of conflicts.
12:27
Joe: And I remember one day we went out, this was maybe a year or so,
12:32
Joe: or even two, beyond when I spent three months in Cobán in Alta Verapaz.
12:37
Joe: I went back out with the team to meet with parties in the mediation process,
12:43
Joe: folks who had benefited supposedly from the mediation of their disputes.
12:48
Joe: And we asked them, you know, what are the benefits?
12:51
Joe: And we hoped to hear that there was more coexistence with their neighbors,
12:57
Joe: less violence, better relationships, more agricultural productivity.
13:00
Joe: And sometimes we did hear that.
13:02
Joe: But with one family in particular, the response was, “Well, it was really great
13:07
Joe: that this one dispute with one neighbor was resolved.
13:10
Joe: But we have active, ongoing disputes with other neighbors.”
13:16
Joe: Our follow-up question, of course, was, well, you know, “Why have you not been
13:19
Joe: able to resolve those disputes?” And the answer was, “Well, we're still waiting
13:24
Joe: for the engineer to come and do the GPS measurements.”
13:29
Joe: ”Well, why could you not sort of talk with them and try to work out?”
13:33
Joe: And what was quickly apparent was that there was no effort in this program to
13:38
Joe: equip the supposed beneficiaries of the program,
13:42
Joe: the program participants with the skills to navigate conflict themselves, to try to
13:50
Joe: engage in conversation with the parties with which they were in conflict to
13:55
Joe: explore what was important to both parties to generate possible solutions. To find standards,
14:02
Joe: objective standards that they could turn to absent some sort of engineer measurement
14:08
Joe: or land scoping and move towards an agreement that would be fair to both parties
14:15
Joe: and that would meet the underlying needs.
14:16
Joe: The framework for
14:20
Joe: conflict resolution that I learned
14:23
Joe: over many years and that we apply at UR Action is one
14:26
Joe: where you really, it's called interest-based negotiation. It's
14:30
Joe: about discussing the underlying needs and concerns of both parties explicitly
14:36
Joe: and transparently and using that understanding. You can imagine for example that
14:41
Joe: if you want a parcel of land there are all sorts of things you could do with
14:45
Joe: that land. You might want to
14:48
Joe: keep it as an asset that you might be able to sell later on, you
14:51
Joe: might want to build a house, you might want to build
14:54
Joe: a soccer field, you might want to build a church, you might want to grow crops, you
14:57
Joe: might want to raise animals. And you
15:01
Joe: can imagine that the other party in the conflict might have some similar interests,
15:04
Joe: might have some different interests, even if they want to grow crops they might
15:07
Joe: want to grow different types of crops that require larger or smaller parts of
15:11
Joe: the land, that might require harvesting and planting at a different time of year.
15:18
Joe: And so an understanding of all that might allow you to generate a whole range
15:23
Joe: of potential solutions that might allow you to meet your needs and interests
15:28
Joe: and might allow them to meet theirs.
15:31
Joe: But absent a conversation and an exploration and a discussion of what would be fair,
15:37
Joe: you squander an opportunity and
15:40
Joe: you resign yourself to living in conflict ,potentially
15:43
Joe: with episodes of violence, with no opportunity to
15:47
Joe: make productive use of that land to
15:50
Joe: achieve your agricultural outputs that
15:53
Joe: you might want. And so the lesson there was, if you're going to implement a conflict
15:59
Joe: resolution program you really ought to equip participants in that program with
16:07
Joe: a collaborative mindset, with tools and framework and skills so that they can try to resolve,
16:14
Joe: manage, transcend conflict themselves rather than having to bring in a third
16:19
Joe: party to help them resolve their conflicts for them.
16:22
Paul: Right. Now that makes a lot of sense. So that's a helpful background on the
16:26
Paul: expertise you are bringing to the work now.
16:29
Paul: So I know you were doing this international work, but at some point you decided
16:34
Paul: to turn your focus on the United States.
16:37
Paul: Why did you make that change?
16:40
Joe: So in the fall of 2016, after the presidential and congressional elections that year, the next day,
16:53
Joe: I walked into the Mercy Corps office and engaged in conversation with a couple
16:59
Joe: of colleagues who I really admire and enjoyed working with.
17:03
Joe: And the conversation quickly turned to the parallels between the conflict dynamics
17:12
Joe: that we have observed in East Africa,
17:15
Joe: West Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America, and the conflict dynamics not
17:19
Joe: present, not only because of that election victory by Donald Trump,
17:24
Joe: but that really had become more visible and apparent throughout the entire campaign,
17:31
Joe: deeper rooted than just sort of a single event.
17:34
Paul: Right. Like what?
17:36
Joe: The dynamics that I'm referring to are the toxic polarization or affective polarization in
17:42
Joe: our country where we as a society tend to deplore the other side more than we
17:52
Joe: affiliate with our own side.
17:54
Joe: Where the rhetoric from our elected officials is divisive, is meant to exacerbate
18:01
Joe: divides rather than to bring us together.
18:04
Joe: Where our political system is broken and dysfunctional, where people feel like
18:10
Joe: they don't really have a voice,
18:12
Joe: where they can't contribute to decisions locally that make their communities
18:18
Joe: and their own lives better.
18:20
Joe: A society where we suffer from isolation and loneliness,
18:26
Joe: which is getting worse, where economic inequality is one of the most drastic
18:32
Joe: in the world in terms of that disparity between the largest income earners and
18:38
Joe: wealth holders and least.
18:40
Joe: And where misinformation and disinformation exacerbate our differences,
18:46
Joe: including the marginalization of groups that are a minority racially,
18:51
Joe: generationally, ethnically, religiously, and so on.
18:56
Joe: And so what struck me was these parallels and the desire to want to do something
19:04
Joe: about that in the United States,
19:07
Joe: applying the wisdom and experience that we had gained over many years of doing
19:12
Joe: Peacebuilding work internationally.
19:13
Paul: So what were your first steps in that direction?
19:17
Joe: One of the first steps, I mean, there were a lot of steps and it wasn't,
19:22
Joe: you know, now I'm sort of trying to play back kind of a linear description.
19:27
Joe: It was, as you might imagine,
19:30
Joe: experimenting with a bunch of different things. Initially, it was seeing what else was out there.
19:36
Joe: And what I saw in 2017 suggested that there were efforts to promote cross-partisan dialogue,
19:47
Joe: which seemed like an important mission of depolarizing America,
19:52
Joe: and which struck me as only
19:56
Joe: partially responsive to the conflict dynamics that
19:59
Joe: I articulated earlie, in
20:03
Joe: large part because there wasn't a
20:06
Joe: lot of action. There wasn't a
20:09
Joe: way of using conversations as
20:13
Joe: a foundation to address challenges and
20:16
Joe: problems that are broadly agreed or seem to be
20:19
Joe: broken. So the underpinning of
20:22
Joe: that approach, meaning the solution-oriented
20:25
Joe: action-oriented work, is intergroup contact theory which
20:29
Joe: is a set of principles laid out
20:33
Joe: by Gordon Allport decades ago which said that the way you can build more enduring
20:40
Joe: trusting relationships across differences assuming certain conditions are met
20:45
Joe: is by bringing together those groups across differences to work on achieving shared goals.
20:53
Joe: What I observed in 2017-2018 was not that.
20:58
Joe: It also wasn't the skill building piece that I referred to earlier from that example in Guatemala.
21:05
Joe: Instead, I saw some kind of robotic moderation of community discussions as opposed
21:12
Joe: to skillful facilitation that really empowers community members to navigate
21:17
Joe: disagreement and conflict in their own lives.
21:19
Joe: And again, that's important to me because conflict is inevitable.
21:24
Joe: None of us is born a skillful conflict resolver.
21:30
Joe: It's a skill that needs to be learned, practiced, cultivated over time.
21:36
Joe: And then one of the things that I experimented with, Paul,
21:40
Joe: which had some promise, but also had some real shortcomings,
21:44
Joe: was something called Super Decathlon for One America, which was all about fun-friendly
21:50
Joe: team competition and bringing together community members in Washington,
21:53
Joe: D.C., where I was living,
21:55
Joe: with community members first in Warsaw, Virginia, a couple hours away in a more
21:59
Joe: rural county called Richmond in Virginia.
22:02
Joe: And in 2018 with community members in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania,
22:06
Joe: Franklin County, south central part of the state, bringing them together to have fun together.
22:12
Joe: Things like kickball and chocolate truffle tasting.
22:15
Joe: And those were fun one day events that held some promise because it showed that,
22:20
Joe: yeah, we can lift up our common humanity and our common identity as Americans by.
22:27
Joe: Just connecting across our differences through fun through conversation through
22:32
Joe: doing things that are enjoyable and at the same time you're not going to build a relationship through
22:39
Joe: one kickball game alone, right, just as you're not going to build a relationship alone by
22:46
Joe: one conversation or one shared meal. The work
22:49
Joe: needs to be sustained, and that's
22:52
Joe: why the intergroup contact theory is
22:56
Joe: really the only approach globally with evidence
22:59
Joe: to support its efficacy in transcending the
23:04
Joe: fissures of our society, working across fault lines. Because when you are working
23:09
Joe: to achieve a shared goal it requires sustained interaction and thinking through,
23:16
Joe: What are the problems we're trying to solve? What are the causes of those problems
23:20
Joe: What are the solutions that we think will work?
23:22
Joe: And then rolling up your sleeves and doing that side by side.
23:25
Joe: And you recognize the benefits of cooperation, but you also appreciate that
23:30
Joe: these are people like you who might not be as different from you as you might have feared,
23:36
Joe: who might share a lot more in common with you in terms of their desire for a
23:41
Joe: stronger, safer community where everyone can provide for their family and coexist peacefully.
24:05
Paul: I want to back up a minute. I'm curious about you. So not everyone grows up
24:10
Paul: and says, “You know what I want to do?
24:11
Paul: I want to put myself right in the middle of conflicts and divisions.
24:15
Paul: And that's where I want to live.” So I am curious what led you there.
24:20
Paul: Were you a peacemaker as a kid in your family?
24:23
Paul: Like, how did you become the kind of person that does this work?
24:27
Joe: My parents got separated and then divorced when I was eight, nine, ten years old
24:33
Joe: and I don't know at the time, right, I certainly don't think at the time I sort of consciously thought.
24:41
Joe: ”Okay this is the manifestation of a dysfunctional relationship and negative toxic conflict and
24:50
Joe: I know that relationships can be managed better.” But I do think I maybe subconsciously
24:55
Joe: over time recognized that there are certain mindsets and practices and approaches
25:03
Joe: that are more and less effective for managing conflict,
25:07
Joe: which is an inevitable outgrowth of living in a diverse society where people
25:14
Joe: have their own ideas and their own beliefs about how things should work.
25:20
Joe: I also, I guess, I faced a crossroads coming out of college.
25:28
Joe: I had an opportunity to do a fellowship relating to Holocaust education,
25:33
Joe: which I had been passionate about during my undergrad years.
25:37
Joe: And I had an opportunity to participate in a symposium around international
25:42
Joe: conflict resolution, dispute resolution, and learn about different approaches
25:47
Joe: to addressing ongoing conflicts.
25:51
Joe: One of my best friends sort of persuaded me that while both are really important,
25:56
Joe: maybe there was an opportunity to really lean into how I might play a positive role in creating,
26:08
Joe: contributing to the resolution of conflicts
26:12
Joe: around the world. And
26:15
Joe: so I went with that friend, Avi Rosenblit, to the
26:19
Joe: Hague in the Netherlands and I was
26:23
Joe: equipped with these different ways of thinking about conflicts um and dispute
26:28
Joe: resolution. When I was in graduate school at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
26:34
Joe: International Studies I took a course that really changed my trajectory. It was
26:36
Joe: called Dispute Settlement Methods with Professor John Murray.
26:40
Joe: And we read two books that were really transformative for me.
26:45
Joe: One was called Beyond Machiavelli, which really described the ways you might,
26:52
Joe: in conflict, put yourself in the shoes of your counterpart and understand what's important to them.
26:57
Joe: Because if you can't address their concerns, whatever solution you might have
27:03
Joe: in mind is not one that they're likely to get on board with.
27:08
Joe: And in many cases, you're going to be better off with an agreement than no agreement.
27:13
Joe: The other book was called Difficult Conversations, which is largely about
27:18
Joe: trying to achieve mutual understanding of different perspectives rather than reaching agreement.
27:24
Joe: And understanding the ways that we, our own identity, might be called into question
27:29
Joe: or challenged or triggered in conversations because of values that we hold and
27:34
Joe: sort of grappling with that.
27:36
Joe: And being able to put on the table
27:40
Joe: things that are challenging for us and that we
27:42
Joe: want to address with
27:45
Joe: the other party and also being willing to hear what's important to
27:48
Joe: them and how their identity might be challenged. Because often there's such a
27:53
Joe: difference between the intent we have when we say things or do things
27:58
Joe: and the impact that is felt. We often unknowingly end up hurting others and being hurt by others,
28:07
Joe: but that can be addressed and even repaired through a conversation grounded in curiosity,
28:13
Joe: humility, and an effort to understand the impact on the other party of our actions
28:19
Joe: and the intent of their actions and words that resulted in a certain impact on us.
28:26
Paul: Yeah. So that early experimentation led into the founding of Urban Rural Action.
28:31
Paul: Can you tell me about what the vision was for Urban Rural Action?
28:34
Paul: And I'm particularly interested in why you landed it on the urban-rural divide.
28:39
Paul: I hear why you said action.
28:40
Paul: Action is coming out very loud and clear from your description. Why urban-rural?
28:45
Joe: Yeah, one of the fault lines that we identified in that first conversation post-2016
28:53
Joe: election was the urban-rural divide because it seemed to us that the urban-rural
29:01
Joe: divide is a proxy for a lot of
29:06
Joe: lines of division in our country. Certainly political leanings,
29:11
Joe: differences in terms of levels of diversity,
29:16
Joe: racially, religiously, ethnically, from an education perspective
29:20
Joe: in terms of four-year college degrees, property values.
29:25
Joe: There's also a lot of resentment.
29:29
Joe: I'm speaking generally, and this shows up very differently across different
29:34
Joe: parts of our country in different states and counties,
29:37
Joe: but a resentment among many people living in more rural areas that their interests,
29:44
Joe: their values, their concerns aren't reflected in decision-making and centers
29:49
Joe: of power in their states.
29:51
Joe: And it occurred to us that there are a lot of similarities and a lot of interconnectedness
29:56
Joe: across different issues, whether it's housing, whether it's food justice.
30:03
Joe: The first kind of model for our programming was kind of bringing together community
30:10
Joe: members in rural areas and community and urban areas to build relationships
30:16
Joe: and solve problems together.
30:17
Joe: Our first program was called Consensus Building for Incarceration Reduction.
30:22
Joe: And we brought together community members in Philadelphia and community members
30:26
Joe: in Adams County, which is a couple hours west, to learn about mass incarceration,
30:32
Joe: learn about our criminal legal system,
30:34
Joe: understand how that's similar and different in a place like Philadelphia and
30:39
Joe: a place like Adams County,
30:40
Joe: and then to explore opportunities to take action locally rather than waiting
30:46
Joe: for our elected officials to solve
30:48
Joe: a problem that they might not be well-positioned or inclined to solve.
30:51
Joe: And that program, as a pilot, had a lot of strengths.
30:57
Joe: It also had some shortcomings. And over time, we realized that…
31:01
Joe: Maybe a few things. One is that people are going to be maximally motivated to
31:07
Joe: take action in their own community as opposed to in a community a couple hours away.
31:13
Joe: Second is, just from a practical perspective, it's a lot easier to travel to
31:19
Joe: gatherings and events in your own community or a neighboring county.
31:23
Joe: And you might be more, again, invested in building connections within your south
31:28
Joe: central Pennsylvania or southeast Wisconsin region than being paired with another
31:36
Joe: community that you might not have any apparent connection to.
31:41
Joe: And what we also began to prioritize just as much as the geographic difference
31:47
Joe: and diversity was the political diversity,
31:51
Joe: the racial diversity, the generational diversity, the
31:54
Joe: religious diversity of the cohort of community members
31:57
Joe: who we call “uniters,” recognizing that we
32:02
Joe: live in a \society
32:04
Joe: where it's become fashionable and common to other people who are different from
32:12
Joe: us and to assume based on what we consume on social media and cable news that
32:20
Joe: those other groups are out to get us,
32:23
Joe: or a gain for them is a loss for us.
32:26
Joe: And so we really, for the last several years, have homed in on the idea that
32:33
Joe: our programs are about bringing people together across
32:38
Joe: geographic, political, racial, generational, religious, and other differences
32:42
Joe: to build relationships, engage in better conversations, and solve problems.
32:46
Joe: And the best way to do that from a programmatic perspective is to work within
32:51
Joe: a single region, contiguous counties.
32:55
Joe: In a small part of a state like southeast Wisconsin, where those counties experience
33:04
Joe: significant social division and they're in a politically polarized state.
33:08
Joe: And yet that contiguity among those counties allows you to travel from your
33:16
Joe: county to a neighboring county with relative ease for positive experiences that
33:22
Joe: increase your view of those communities that you're interacting with.
33:27
Paul: So can you tell us a bit about one of these more recent projects?
33:31
Joe: Yeah. Our model is that we set up what we call Uniting for Action Local Hubs.
33:38
Joe: And the hub implies a level of permanence.
33:43
Joe: It's not a one-off program that we pop in to carry out and then we go somewhere
33:50
Joe: else and carry out a different program.
33:53
Joe: The idea is that we serve as a civic hub, as an opportunity for anyone in our
34:00
Joe: community, in that community, who wants to be a part of the solution rather
34:04
Joe: than complaining about the problem.
34:06
Joe: Someone who wants to engage with people who are different to make their community better.
34:10
Joe: And the hubs consist of three components. Number one,
34:16
Joe: annual civic participation programs that bring together people across the hub
34:25
Joe: over a nine-month period to build relationships,
34:31
Joe: strengthen collaboration skills, and then within their own county
34:34
Joe: analyze an issue like mental health or targeted violence or housing and homelessness,
34:43
Joe: and do that analysis with a community partner, a social service organization
34:48
Joe: that might support mental health outcomes, that might provide suicide prevention
34:53
Joe: services, that might work with veteran populations, and so on.
34:57
Joe: And then to design an intervention, a solution, a set of actions that that group
35:03
Joe: of five to eight community members, along with a community partner, can implement.
35:09
Joe: So that's component one, which I'll come back to.
35:12
Joe: Component two, quickly, is community workshops, meaning we want everyone in the
35:17
Joe: community, regardless of their ability to commit or not commit to a long-term endeavor,
35:23
Joe: to be able to engage in conversation constructively at a house of worship,
35:27
Joe: at the public library, on issues of concern to them, whether that's crime and
35:34
Joe: violence in their community, whether it's around education,
35:38
Joe: whether it's around criminal legal issues.
35:42
Joe: And those constructive conversation workshops, which are partly about skill
35:48
Joe: building, partly about connection and conversation, are open to the public and they're free.
35:51
Joe: The third piece is called Powering Pluralism and Democracy, which is working
35:56
Joe: with local leaders to make their institutions more responsive to community concerns,
36:03
Joe: more accountable, more transparent,
36:06
Joe: so that community member trust in those institutions is increasing,
36:12
Joe: not because community members are being told that you should trust your institutions
36:16
Joe: more, but because the institutions are becoming more trustworthy themselves.
36:21
Joe: And so when you ask about an example of a program, I'm thinking about our Uniting
36:27
Joe: for Action nine-month civic participation program. And one example is in Southern Oregon.
36:34
Joe: The program was called Uniting for Action on the Economy in Southern Oregon.
36:37
Joe: In each of the four counties, the uniters in those counties designed their own interventions.
36:43
Joe: And there was one that said, we really want to revitalize this community garden,
36:50
Joe: which is next to a food pantry in a very small town called Butte Falls.
36:57
Joe: And that's a town that really experiences a high level of food insecurity.
37:01
Joe: And this team of uniters came together across differences,
37:06
Joe: working with a local partner that had some expertise around community garden
37:13
Joe: development and crop growing and harvesting and food production, to transform
37:19
Joe: this plot of land into one that could not only grow crops,
37:24
Joe: but that could sustain the food pantry next door.
37:26
Joe: And that could enhance food security across the larger community.
37:32
Joe: And that community garden is still operational and thriving today, as far as I know.
37:39
Joe: And it really represents, I think, the twin missions of our projects.
37:45
Joe: And by project, I mean the intervention within a larger program.
37:48
Joe: Number one, build relationships, trust, promote agency and belonging through
37:55
Joe: the collaboration and the connection.
37:58
Joe: And then second, create something meaningful that addresses a tangible problem
38:05
Joe: that the community has identified.
38:19
Joe: One of the features of our Uniting for Action local hubs, Paul,
38:23
Joe: that really reflects the community-led approach is the role of our county coordinators.
38:30
Joe: These are people who live and work
38:33
Joe: in the county, that live and work in the counties that make up the hub.
38:40
Joe: Each coordinator is a part-time UR Action team member,
38:44
Joe: and their role is to first recruit community members to apply to become uniters,
38:51
Joe: and then to help the leadership team, the core team, we call it,
38:57
Joe: that's leading the program, to decide which applicants are going to be successful
39:04
Joe: and become uniters with an eye towards
39:08
Joe: who is going to really contribute to problem solving across differences and
39:13
Joe: the diversity politically, racially, generationally, and so on across that uniter's
39:19
Joe: team in their county, as well as the broader cohort.
39:21
Joe: And the county coordinator is also responsible for leading that team of uniters
39:26
Joe: once the program starts to analyze the issue in their county, whether that is
39:33
Joe: mental health or whether it's targeted violence or whether it's housing and
39:36
Joe: homelessness, ensuring that all voices are heard,
39:39
Joe: that the team is thinking about the causes and effects of the problem as well
39:44
Joe: as the resources and assets that are available to help address that problem
39:48
Joe: in an impactful and sustainable way. And then that county coordinator is really
39:53
Joe: leading the team through the process of designing their intervention and implementing it,
39:58
Joe: where they're not guiding the team of uniters towards a specific substantive
40:03
Joe: direction or specific outcome, but instead facilitating a process where the
40:08
Joe: community members, the uniters, have ownership of the substantive direction that the project takes.
40:13
Joe: And I just thought that it's a really great manifestation of locally led peace
40:19
Joe: building where our role is to convene, organize,
40:24
Joe: provide frameworks and structure such that the community and the community members
40:29
Joe: who are participating in the program can decide what action is most needed and
40:35
Joe: how should that action be implemented to address an agreed problem that this
40:41
Joe: team wants to take on.
40:43
Paul: Got it. And you mentioned frameworks, so I'm curious about a couple frameworks you have
40:46
Paul: on your website and what that looks like in this kind of situation.
40:51
Paul: So is that process that you talked about leading, is that where the problem tree analysis comes in?
40:57
Joe: That's exactly right.
40:59
Paul: So what's a problem tree analysis and what does it look like?
41:04
Joe: Yeah, problem tree analysis looks like a five-step process of,
41:12
Joe: number one, identifying a problem. And the tree part is just a metaphor for
41:20
Joe: the problem representing the trunk. It's sort of like the middle,
41:24
Joe: if you're visualizing a tree, a problem statement, it might be that too many
41:30
Joe: people in our community are experiencing adverse impacts surrounding mental
41:35
Joe: health or relating to mental health.
41:36
Joe: Step two is mapping out the effects
41:39
Joe: of that problem what are the effects economically socially environmentally
41:43
Joe: and politically, right, thinking about these
41:46
Joe: different systems and how might one immediate or direct effect result in a secondary
41:53
Joe: or tertiary effect. And the process is one where all the team members are
41:59
Joe: thinking expansively brainstorming writing on sticky notes their thoughts, their experiences.
42:04
Joe: Step three is looking at the, and those are, I should say, step two is the
42:07
Joe: branches of the tree, right? Sort of what is up above.
42:11
Joe: Step three is looking at the causes of the problem or the roots.
42:15
Joe: What are the social, political, economic, and environmental causes of the problem,
42:21
Joe: both immediate contributors as well as underlying causes?
42:25
Joe: And again, this is a process where the county coordinator is inviting people
42:31
Joe: to share a bunch of ideas about what might be causing this problem across those
42:34
Joe: different systems. And they stick those
42:38
Joe: Notes up on the wall or a flip chart paper.
42:41
Joe: And then the county coordinator is fostering a conversation where people can
42:47
Joe: ask questions about what their peers have written and deepen their understanding
42:51
Joe: of why those teammates think that cause X is actually a cause and how it might
42:57
Joe: contribute to the problem.
42:59
Joe: And then even to some of the effects that
43:03
Joe: result from that problem. Step four is
43:06
Joe: overlaying that with some assets and resources that
43:09
Joe: exist in the community because we want uniters to
43:12
Joe: not carry out an intervention in a vacuum but rather leverage what already exists
43:17
Joe: so that their intervention can be maximally impactful. And step five is to
43:24
Joe: identify a cause based on that entire map that they want to address working
43:29
Joe: side by side with their community partner.
43:31
Joe: And as a reminder, the lead of the community partner organization is part of
43:36
Joe: the uniter's team, and they're providing some substantive direction and might
43:39
Joe: be most knowledgeable about the assets and resources that exist.
43:43
Joe: And so the team is reaching a consensus on which cause do we want to address.
43:48
Joe: And once they've decided on that, it provides the foundation for the next framework,
43:54
Joe: which is project design,
43:56
Joe: basically designing your intervention in the community. Knowing that you want
43:59
Joe: to address that cause is different from knowing how you're going to address that cause.
44:06
Joe: And that's sort of the next framework and tool that's used.
44:10
Joe: Again, facilitated by the county coordinator with the uniters deciding substantively
44:15
Joe: what's the goal that they want to articulate, what's their theory for how to
44:19
Joe: achieve it, what are the activities that they're going to carry out.
44:22
Paul: Got it. Could you give us an example of that process and maybe anything surprising or
44:27
Paul: unexpected that's come out of one of them in the past?
44:30
Joe: Okay. In Multnomah County, Oregon,
44:34
Joe: The problem statement there was many residents in Multnomah County can't afford housing.
44:39
Joe: And their analysis was really interesting because they identified all sorts
44:43
Joe: of effects that you might not typically think about.
44:46
Joe: For sure, evictions, but also a fear that crime was increasing,
44:52
Joe: that people were leaving the region and that there was a loss of talent for businesses.
44:56
Joe: So there was this economic impact, a sense that residents experiencing homelessness
45:01
Joe: would not be able to participate civically. So their voices weren't heard by elected officials.
45:07
Joe: Tent communities, in parts, making it harder for everyone to enjoy clean and safe public spaces.
45:11
Joe: And then there was also this emergence of causes that the team identified around
45:18
Joe: increased demand for housing, inadequate mental and physical health care.
45:23
Joe: And so the question was, well, what's causing that? And the group identified
45:26
Joe: barriers to mental health services, paperwork being a barrier to some,
45:31
Joe: the medical system being unaffordable
45:33
Joe: even if you might otherwise want to have health insurance, predatory landlords
45:39
Joe: and mortgage suppliers.
45:40
Joe: So, you know, this type of analysis really expands people's conception of the
45:45
Joe: problem in a way where you're not debating what's accurate and not,
45:50
Joe: but you're thinking through a problem that is impacting everyone and that you
45:55
Joe: can affect in a way that's more comprehensive and expansive than you otherwise might imagine.
46:13
Paul: So you've assembled a bit of a team around yourself at Urban Rural Action.
46:18
Paul: Could you say a few words about kind of who the “we” is of Urban Rural Action,
46:22
Paul: who you're doing this with?
46:24
Joe: Yeah, it's a phenomenal team, and it's really hard work.
46:28
Joe: And what we have accomplished over many years is really a reflection of the
46:34
Joe: skill, the talent, the steadfastness, the hard work, the creativity of many, many people.
46:42
Joe: Our executive team consists of four of us.
46:46
Joe: Lisa Inks is someone who I worked with at Mercy Corps during that time period.
46:52
Joe: She is one of those two other people who I engaged in conversation with right
46:57
Joe: in the aftermath of the 2016 election.
46:59
Joe: And she later became the first board chair of UR Action. She then left Mercy
47:08
Joe: Corps to join us as our Senior Director of Evidence and Learning.
47:13
Joe: Kira Hamman is our Senior Director of Programs and was also really instrumental
47:18
Joe: in founding UR Action. We met through volunteering at Better Angels,
47:25
Joe: now Braver Angels, back in 2018.
47:27
Joe: Kira helped me get more involved in volunteering for Braver Angels and observe
47:33
Joe: different red-blue workshops that were happening and
47:37
Joe: gave me the opportunity to experience what I thought was really powerful about
47:42
Joe: that model of red-blue dialogue and also what was lacking.
47:47
Joe: And Kira, from the very get-go, was involved in our first programming.
47:54
Joe: Our first workshop that we ever carried out was in Waynesboro,
47:58
Joe: Pennsylvania, in September 2019, where we brought together gun shop owners and
48:04
Joe: gun rights advocates alongside violence prevention advocates.
48:10
Joe: And the community members were from Washington, D.C. and Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
48:14
Joe: And that workshop, which Kira and I co-facilitated, really demonstrated to us,
48:19
Joe: even in the early days, that this was a model that could work.
48:22
Joe: There was something here that we could build on.
48:25
Joe: And Pearce Godwin is our Senior Director of Communications, founder of the Listen
48:30
Joe: First Coalition and the Listen First Project.
48:34
Joe: The coalition is a collection of 500 plus bridge building organizations.
48:37
Joe: And Pierce is really the national leader of the bridge building movement and
48:42
Joe: someone who really laid the groundwork for the idea that we Americans are stronger
48:47
Joe: together when we are engaging across our differences, giving others the benefit of the doubt,
48:52
Joe: working together to solve shared problems that we widely believe are broken.
48:57
Paul: Thank you. So we are just about out of time. I really appreciate you taking
49:01
Paul: the time to join me on the podcast.
49:04
Paul: My one final question as we head out the door would just be sort of,
49:08
Paul: what's next for UR Action? Is there one sort of dream or vision that you're
49:13
Paul: hoping to work on in the coming years?
49:16
Joe: Hmm, yeah.
49:18
Joe: Yeah, I love that, Paul. I mean, there's so much. We just met as an executive
49:22
Joe: team, and we shared all sorts of goals we have for this year and beyond.
49:26
Joe: And I'm really hoping that what we see over the next years is the growth of
49:35
Joe: our hubs, going deep where we're already working in southern Oregon,
49:39
Joe: southeast Wisconsin, central Arizona,
49:43
Joe: central Indiana, eastern North Carolina, south central Pennsylvania,
49:47
Joe: southwestern Pennsylvania, and measuring the impact of that work such that we
49:52
Joe: can demonstrate that this can be done anywhere because it's needed everywhere.
49:55
Paul: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And I'm excited to keep an eye on what
49:59
Paul: y'all are doing. So I appreciate the time. Thanks for coming on.
50:04
Joe: Thanks so much, Paul. I really appreciate it.
50:06
Paul: Take care.
50:07
Paul: Thank you all for listening. For transcripts, shownotes,
50:15
Paul: and links to subscribe to the podcast and our Substack newsletter,
50:18
Paul: go to partnershipwork.org.
50:21
Paul: Partnership Work is an independent podcast produced with the support of Urban
50:24
Paul: Media Arts here in my hometown of Malden, Massachusetts.
50:28
Paul: Visit them at urbanmediaarts.org. Until next time, take care.