This presentation will consider how COVID, Structural Oppressions (e.g. white supremacy), economic downturn and inequality, political threats and climate change interact and affect individuals and communities. What helps people to survive these pandemics and can even lead to thriving? What role can architects, urban planners, engineers and designers play in supporting people amidst so many threats and challenges to their wellbeing?

Speaker: Joshua Miller (Professor of Social Work, Smith College)

Joshua Miller, Ph.D. is a professor of social work at Smith College who has been teaching and writing about racism and white supremacy for many years. He links structural racism with internalized racism and white supremacy and works with white people to help them to recognize, understand and respond to structural racism. He is co-author of Racism in the United States: Implications for the helping professions, which will soon be in its third edition.

He also specialises in helping individuals and communities to recover from disasters, war and violence and is the author of Psychosocial capacity building in response to disasters. His model of intervention integrates trauma theory, positive psychology, Eastern philosophy and liberation psychology. Prior to teaching, Miller spent 20 years as a community organizer, family therapist, group worker and researcher, and was the director of public and private nonprofit child and family welfare agencies.