"The first thing that must be understood about how Movement Scientists show up in political battlefields is that we are connectors, first-responders, and pioneers of innovative methods within the field of data science and design. We connect people to essential statistics, resources, writings, databases, impact statements, etc. We are on the frontlines of debate. Here, we are armed with the data points necessary to refute problematic ideology, support community voices, demonstrate root causes, and hold authority figures accountable." -Jessica Bellamy
Central to the role of scholar-activists in combatting systems of oppression is placing more of the public decision-making process in the hands of communities. Occupying space outside of academia means prioritizing community inclusion and capacity building to focus research at the center of the budgets, investments, resource allocation, and power dynamics of entrenched institutions to expose the root causes of systemic gaps. Movement Science is research intentionally in service to abolitionist and justice movements.
Panelists in this session argue that planning and public health educators must also endeavor to place more of planning and public health education in the hands of communities through the creative application of new technologies, foregrounding abolitionist planning histories, and participatory processes. Our panelists will share the ways in which digital storytelling and archival research have shaped their approach to Movement Science, abolitionist planning education, engagement, and organizing in Louisville, KY.
Panelists’ specific practices of acknowledgment and commemoration of the government and profession’s roles in displacement, dispossession, and erasure during research and project-based learning processes are discussed. Panelists end with their suggestions for how planning and public health educators can prepare future practitioners to use tactical countermapping and counternarrative development in ways that empower communities.
Short Bios
Jessica Bellamy - International speaker, Adobe Creative Residency alumna, and award-winning infographic designer.
Jessica Bellamy is a co-principal investigator at the Root Cause Research Center. As a former Neurodevelopmental Science research analyst at the University of Louisville and community organizer, in 2015, Jessica created a social enterprise that combined grassroots organizing, research, and information graphics. She named that business GRIDS: The Grassroots Information Design Studio. She has since been featured in Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, Forbes, Communication Arts Magazine, The Great Discontent, Create Magazine, Creative Mornings, Slack, The Dieline, Revision Path, and on Adobe’s Project 1324 (viewable through Facebook).
Josh Poe – Urban Planner, Geographer, Community Organizer.
Josh Poe is a co-principal investigator at the Root Cause Research Center. He has received national recognition as a scholar-activist, urban planner, community organizer, and geographer. Originally from Eastern Kentucky, he began his career doing grassroots organizing around housing, labor, and economic justice issues in Seattle, WA in the late 1990s In 2017 he authored and published the interactive storymap, Redlining Louisville: Racial Capitalism and Real Estate, which received recognition from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in its effort to recognize best-in-class data visualizations. He has been at the forefront of exposing racial capitalism in real estate science as well as how city planning and urban policy were weaponized to deny Black people land ownership and access to the accumulation of generational wealth. His work on the history of city planning, inclusive design and equitable housing policy makes him a featured speaker nationally.
Joshua Poe (he/him/his)
Founder and Principal - Acknowledge, Recognize, Connect (ARC)
Twitter - @JoshuaPoe_Lou
502.544.3834
joshuapoe001@gmail.com
Visit Redlining Louisville: Racial Capitalism and Real Estate