CY PLAN 291
Spring 2021, 4 units, humanities studio course
Instructors: Charisma Acey and Margaretta Lin
Wednesdays 2 – 6 pm
In this studio course students explored how to partner with communities to carry out joint research and place-based storytelling at the intersections of two of the biggest racial injustice issues facing cities in the United States and other countries–mass incarceration and racial displacement. Students learned about the principles of transformative justice–how to center the leadership and lived experiences of people impacted by racial injustices. Students experienced how academic research and/or story-telling skills could be applied in non-extractive, strategic, and spirit-lifting ways to support these grassroots led initiatives. Students studied groundbreaking ordinances in Oakland and Berkeley that eliminate racialized housing discrimination against people returning home from mass incarceration and community efforts to reimagine policing. Working with the racial justice organization Just Cities, students used lenses of racial justice and critical race theory and combine qualitative and quantitative analysis with oral history and arts approaches to understand and convey the impact of policy change utilizing a transformative justice model. Students produced public-facing analyses and narratives through means that may include storytelling, mapping, writing, video, photography, and a variety of arts-based approaches.
