The Conversation Piece

Community isn't the soft stuff around democracy—it's the load-bearing wall holding it up.Amanda Munday is executive director of New Majority, a nonpartisan organization that activates young and first-time voters. Drawing on her own experience building a co-working and childcare space after hitting a wall of policy inaction, she shows how community infrastructure—not political access—is often what turns advocacy into real change. This special episode of The Conversation Piece features content from The Walrus Talks: Power and Belonging, supported by The Belonging Forum.Munday spoke at The Walrus Talks: Power and Belonging on April 9, 2026.

Public libraries have run on overdue fines and quiet-please rules for generations. Increasingly, more of them are dropping both—and discovering that connection, not silence, is what makes a place worth belonging to.Åsa Kachan is CEO and Chief Librarian of Halifax Public Libraries. She drawing on her own experience growing up in libraries, she shows how removing fines, welcoming food and conversation, and designing for accidental encounters can turn libraries into places where belonging happens by design. This special episode of The Conversation Piece features content from The Walrus Talks at Home: Place and Belonging, supported by The Belonging Forum.Kachan spoke at The Walrus Talks at Home: Place and Belonging on November 4, 2025.

Physical infrastructure can be seen. Relational infrastructure can only be felt—and it might be the difference between a park and a place worth belonging to.Jorge Garza is director of Networks for Change at the Tamarack Institute. Drawing on communities like BC's Tri-Cities, he shows how relational infrastructure—the connections and collective intelligence beneath a place—is turns static spaces into ones that generate real belonging.This special episode of The Conversation Piece features content from The Walrus Talks at Home: Place and Belonging, supported by The Belonging Forum.Garza spoke at The Walrus Talks at Home: Place and Belonging on November 4, 2025.

Beneath the noise of traffic, one Toronto space is quietly proving that conversation—not commerce—is what makes a neighborhood.Anna Gallagher-Ross is senior manager of programming at The Bentway, a public space beneath Toronto's Gardiner Expressway that hosts year-round arts programming and social gatherings. Drawing on The Bentway's research, she shows how seating, art, and play turn passersby into neighbours—and why public space is public health infrastructure. This special episode of The Conversation Piece features content from her presentation at The Walrus Talks at Home: Place and Belonging, supported by The Belonging Forum.Gallagher-Ross spoke at The Walrus Talks at Home: Place and Belonging on November 4, 2025.

Housing is a human right we don't yet action—so what happens to belonging when your address depends on your bank account?Michelle Hoar is a fellow at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University and project director for the Hey Neighbour Collective, an initiative building neighbourly connection and resilience in multi-unit housing. This special episode of The Conversation Piece features content from her presentation at The Walrus Talks at Home: Place and Belonging, supported by The Belonging Forum.Hoar spoke at The Walrus Talks at Home: Place and Belonging on November 4, 2025.

Conversations about accessibility are often framed around legislation and accommodations, but the stories we tell about disability can be equally powerful in shaping how accessibility is perceived and lived.Human rights lawyer and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and Belonging (DEIAB) consultant Prasanna Ranganathan argues that accessibility requires more than policy change—it demands new narratives that allow us to imagine the inclusive world we seek to build.Ranganathan spoke at The Walrus Talks AccessAbility in Toronto on May 26, 2026.To register for upcoming events happening online or in a city near you, and to catch up on our archive of The Walrus Talks, visit thewalrus.ca/events.And subscribe to The Walrus Events newsletter for updates and announcements, at thewalrus.ca/newsletters.