Narrative, Resilience, and Social Change

Urmitapa Dutta, Susan James, and Host Susan Grelock Yusem

What’s happening in our world—and how do we respond? For the past four years, Commonweal’s Omega Resilience Awards project has been exploring this question with fellows and research teams across Africa, India, and Latin America. Now we’re ready to share what we’re learning. Join us for a conversation with two of the researchers, who will share their findings and explore together: How do we respond to these times not just through individual stories, but through the larger work of changing our collective narratives?

This is part of Commonweal’s 50th anniversary year—a time when we’re reflecting on five decades of healing ourselves and the Earth and asking how we navigate these times through community, learning, and resilience. Illustrations by Jon Marro.

Listen (audio only)

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Urmitapa Dutta, Ph.D.

Urmitapa is leading two ORA Research Grants, including Storytelling as Survival: The Itamugur Community Media Initiative for Miya Rights and Recognition as well as a project to understand the narratives of culture and the arts that exists within community-based projects within the larger ORA community. She is a community psychologist, scholar-activist, and educator whose work is rooted in transnational feminist and decolonial frameworks. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where she also serves as the Chair of the UMass Lowell Greeley Peace Scholar Program. Her co-authored works with community partners and students have appeared in Qualitative Inquiry, American Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Peace Psychology, and the Journal of Social Issues and several decolonial community psychology handbooks.

Susan James, Ph.D.

Susan James, Ph.D. is leading two ORA Research Grants, including Integrating Global South Knowledge Systems into Organizations in the Global North, as well as a project to understand the narratives of both traditional and modern technologies—including sacred practices and ritual—that exist within community-based projects within the larger ORA community. She is a member of the core faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and co-chair of the Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Eco-Psychologies specialization of the M.A./Ph.D. program in Depth Psychology. Her work has focused on structural violence, transnational African spiritualities as resistance and innovation, visual design methodologies and research communication strategies. Her journal publications include American Journal of Community Psychology, Violence Against Women, and Women and Therapy.