The Brink: Prof. Williams Explores Intersection of Racial & Environmental Justice
Darien Alexander Williams, PhD, an assistant professor at Boston University School of Social Work, studies the interplay between communities and their environment. In an in-depth profile published in The Brink, Prof. Darien Alexander Williams shares how his personal history and his work in urban planning and community organizing led him to macro social work.
Excerpt from “Why Is the US So Unprepared for Natural Disasters?” (The Brink) by Alene Bouranova:
When people think of social work, they probably imagine caseworkers helping families secure safe housing and navigate bureaucratic welfare systems, or providing support through some of life’s hardest moments. But arranging cities?
To Williams, his arrival in the social work field both is and isn’t surprising. “I’m trained as an urban planner, and there’s some very obvious overlap between the worlds of urban planning and macro social work,” he says. Not everyone has necessarily “gotten” his work before.
“I feel like some of what I do is kind of hard to place, disciplinarily, even within urban planning,” Williams says, “and I’ve experienced instances of people challenging my work belonging within that field.” When he first discussed his research with social workers, however, “people were immediately like, ‘Yes, [we get it], and this is a form of social work. This is a place for you.’”
You can read the full BU Today article here.