From the Margins to the Center: Community-Led Strategies for Bridging Peace

Presented in collaboration with the Irreverent Podcast 

Title: From the Margins to the Center: Community-Led Strategies for Bridging Peacebuilding, Development, and Security in an Uncertain World

This roundtable explores how communities directly impacted by the policies and rhetoric of repressive regimes and leadership — immigrants, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, religious groups, and economically marginalized populations — have mobilized to address systemic challenges at the intersection of peacebuilding, development, and security.

Rather than focusing solely on institutional responses, this session centers grassroots agency: how “we,” the affected, have resisted, reimagined, and rebuilt. Participants will examine how local actors have responded to heightened polarization, securitization, and economic precarity through community organizing, mutual aid, digital activism, and restorative justice practices.

Key questions include:

• What lessons can we learn from marginalized innovation during repressive leadership and regimes?
• How have marginalized communities redefined security beyond state-centric models?
• What peacebuilding tools have emerged from grassroots resistance and solidarity networks?
• How can development frameworks be reshaped to reflect lived realities and cultural resilience?

The session will begin with short reflections from community leaders, scholars, and student activists, followed by a facilitated dialogue that invites all participants to share insights, strategies, and lived experiences.

Session Goals:

• Elevate community-led responses to systemic injustice and political polarization
• Explore how grassroots peacebuilding intersects with development and security frameworks
• Identify tools and practices that emerged during these eras of repressive regimes and leadership and remain relevant today
• Foster solidarity and knowledge exchange across sectors and identities

Team Members:

• Jamie Dayne Sackett
• Aroma Zainab
• Bryant Thomas Lyttle
• Gavin Cole Buckowski
• Silvestre Acuna Acedillo

Expert Panel/Speakers:

• Dr. Hannah K. Brown
• Dr. Mahmut Cengiz
• Dr. Rawan Arar
• Malala Yousafzai (Invited, not confirmed)
• Dr. Jill Biden (Invited, not confirmed)

Advisor: Dr. Al Fuertes