The Power of Bridging

How To Build A World Where We All Belong 

A research-backed guide for building bridges across differences in any area of our lives, written by esteemed civil rights scholar john a. powell, and edited and developed with the Othering & Belonging Institute’s Rachelle Galloway-Popotas.

We don’t want to live in a society in turmoil. In the US, 93% of people want to reduce divisiveness, and 86% believe it’s possible to disagree in a healthy way. Yet with increasing political and social fragmentation, many of us don’t know how to move past our differences. Civil rights scholar john a. powell presents an actionable path through “bridging” that helps us communicate, coexist, and imagine a new story for our shared future where we all belong.

With inimitable warmth and vision, powell offers a framework for building cohesion and solidarity between disparate beliefs and groups. He defines key concepts such as “othering,” which primes us to see people as a threat; “breaking,” which excludes people or sees them as threatening our belonging; and finally “bridging,” which fosters acceptance both of those we might have othered and even aspects of ourselves.

He shares personal reflections as well as practices to help you begin bridging wherever you are—in your community, friendships, family, workplace, and even those with whom you might never have imagined you could find common ground. He calls upon us not just to engage with bridging but to become bridgers.

“Bridging is a salve for our fractured world,” powell says. “We can overcome the illusion of separateness by honoring our differences, transcending the notion that difference divides us, and instead co-create a world where everyone belongs.”