Narrative, Resilience, and Social Change | Alejo di Risio, Susan James, Urmitapa Dutta

Name: Narrative, Resilience, and Social Change | Alejo di Risio, Susan James, Urmitapa Dutta
Start: 2026-02-15T13:00:00-08:00
End: 2026-02-15T15:00:00-08:00
Location: 451 Mesa Rd, Bolinas, CA, United States, California 94924

Schedule

Sun Feb 15 2026 at 01:00 pm to 03:00 pm

UTC-08:00

Location

451 Mesa Rd, Bolinas, CA, United States, California 94924 | Bolinas, CA

Narrative, Resilience, and Social Change | Alejo di Risio, Susan James, Urmitapa Dutta, and Host Susan Grelock Yusem
*Sunday, February 15 | 1:00-3:00pm Pacific
in Gallery Commonweal
Join us in person or on Zoom
$15 suggested donation, no one turned away
Register HERE: https://tns.commonweal.org/events/dirisio-james-grelock-yusem/
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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 three 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?
Join us in person or online for a 1-hour moderated conversation, some time for questions, followed by a reception and viewing of the gallery exhibit (on display through March) featuring stunning illustrations by Jon Marro, bringing the four years of this project to life.
This event will be held in Gallery Commonweal, which is on the 2nd floor of our historic building, and there is no elevator.
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. | Artwork: Jon Marro
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Alejo di Risio is coordinating the ORA Research Grant looking at the narrative of ecology within the larger ORA community of community-based projects. Alejo is a journalist, environmental consultant, and cultural strategist based in Argentina. He is the founder of elSur.Global, a consultancy exploring narratives and political strategies for a just ecological transition, and coordinates communications at AAdeAA-CAJE. Founder and curator of Club de Futuros, cultural project in which artists, researchers, and activists explore desirable ecological futures speculative exercises, and collective storytelling. His research focuses on the intersection of political communication, environmental culture, and ecological imaginaries—especially how communities articulate and share visions of life worth fighting for.
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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.
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Urmitapa Dutta, Ph.D. 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.
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Host Susan Grelock Yusem, Ph.D. leads strategy and innovation at Commonweal, where she’s part of the stewardship team guiding the organization and supporting the 30+ programs that call Commonweal home. A trained depth psychologist and community psychologist with a doctorate from Pacifica Graduate Institute, Susan’s career has unfolded at the forefront of the organic and regenerative food movement, including leadership roles at Patagonia’s regenerative food division and Amy’s Kitchen. She brings together strategic communication, psychological depth, and collaborative leadership, with deep interests in narrative design, radical hospitality, and bringing the sensibilities of depth psychology into everyday life and group settings. Susan lives in Point Reyes Station, California, where you’ll often find her hiking, trail running, writing, cooking, and celebrating the ways we gather and create meaning together.