Building Bridges to Defuse Extremism in Rural America

Hosted on May 12th, 2022

In this webinar by United Vision Project, Adrienne Evans (Executive Director) shares how UVP has trained an army of volunteers across multiple states to engage in digital deep listening: using texting technology, empathy, and curiosity to draw out people’s views on issues ranging from health, mental health, and reproductive care to voting rights and policing; and how you can get involved and use some of UVP’s tools in your own work.

Building Bridges to Defuse Extremism in Rural America with United Vision Project

from Rx Foundation’s Power is a Social Determinant of Health series

Session description: United Vision Project has created a powerful set of tools and information that show it’s possible to build bridges—even with people who sympathize with authoritarianism and identify as ethnic nationalists. UVP is the first-ever organizing and research effort focused on rural, White conservative voters, especially those with ethnic nationalist and authoritarian beliefs. UVP partners include People’s Action, Showing Up for Racial Justice, and the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard.

In this session, you’ll learn how UVP has trained an army of volunteers across multiple states to engage in digital deep listening: using texting technology, empathy, and curiosity to draw out people’s views on issues ranging from health, mental health, and reproductive care to voting rights and policing. Adrienne will also share insights from the project’s rich dataset of over 94,000 individual conversations across five states—representing the largest collection ever of information about US residents sympathetic to extreme nationalist movements and ideas.

UVP shares what is next for scaling this work to other states, for deepening the research and narrative strategy, and for getting these tools and learnings into the hands of community organizers across the United States. Our goal is for participants to leave with more than a sense of urgency about the problem of political divides in America. We aim for everyone to leave with renewed hope and energy for building bridges, along with concrete ideas for how you can get involved and use some of UVP’s tools in your own work.

To watch the full webinar, please fill out our Google Form to receive an email with a direct link and password within 1-3 business days.

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To watch the full webinar, please fill out our Google Form to receive an email with a direct link and password within 1-3 business days.

Session Highlights

One outgoing question – our country is more divided than it’s ever been, what do you think is causing it? – was the foundation of every deep conversation

Training, Research, and Synthesis: a framework

Listening is a core skill for bridging gaps, building trust, and crafting transformative interventions

Entry points for conversations may be different than policy agenda items – message resonance varies

Democracy has to be a foundational pillar across all movements; and we cannot leave anyone behind

Being right versus building power

Resources

Learn more about the the United Vision Project and get involved in their work by visiting their site.

Speakers

Adrienne Evans (she/her)

Adrienne Evans is the executive director for United Vision for Idaho, the state’s only multi-issue, progressive coalition. A sociologist and nationally recognized social justice organizer, she works on key national campaigns from healthcare, economic and tax policy, family security, immigration and other critical issues. Her background is in multi-issue movement development, strategic community organizing with a particular focus on the intersections of economic, social and racial justice.

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