Belonging Resources

The purpose of this Belonging Resources guide is to connect students, staff, faculty, and community members to resources that relate to belonging within communities. These topics can be researched on their own or in relation to a specific discipline area.

We invite you to explore the different tabs to discover more information and resources. Please note it is impossible to include every resource so each tab includes a selected few resources and information available to start one's journey.

• Disability and Neurodiversity 
• LGBTQIA+
• Race, Culture, & Ethnicity
• Religion & Spirituality
• Socio-Economic
• Women & Gender 

We welcome your feedback. Please use the feedback box to share any suggestions or comments. 

Northeastern University offers an array of networks for students, faculty, and staff to engage in belonging initiatives and communities including affinity groups, cultural centers, and institutional support services. You can find out more about all the campus has to offer at the: 

• Office of Belonging
  •  Includes information about affinity groups, training for managers and staff, all-gender restrooms on campus, and more

The Northeastern University Library believes that libraries play a special role in welcoming every individual and community, and ensuring that everyone feels that they belong in our institution. Commitment to this central value, which opposes all forms of exclusion and discrimination, comes in the form of consistent, concrete actions in our daily work as individuals and through large-scale initiatives across the organization in order to improve our library and the communities it serves, within and beyond the university. Among other activities, we give special attention to:

• Building an  Archives and Special Collections that collaborates on a peer-to-peer basis with social justice organizations in the Greater Boston Area, and that focuses on preserving and presenting the history and culture of groups that are largely underrepresented in university collections;
• Constantly reviewing and expanding our library’s resources to reflect authors and creators from the full breadth of our society and world, and to ensure that we have a collection of books and media that can help students and researchers understand and counteract systematic oppression;
• Designing information systems that encode and support belonging, including through our library platforms and projects that involve technical aspects, such as the Boston Research Center;
• Providing a welcoming environment and attracting a diverse staff into what traditionally has not been an inclusive or diverse field.

We understand that this active stance requires a regular, critical self-assessment and transparency. This statement will be updated with new activities as our library advances toward these goals.

We wish to acknowledge that this guide was created for the Northeastern University Library in Boston, Massachusetts which is situated on unceded ancestral territories of the Pawtucket and Massachusetts peoples. This guide was worked on remotely, in homes situated on unceded ancestral territories of the Massachusetts, Pawtucket, and Wampanoag peoples. We pay respect to the Elders, both past and present, as well as future generations. 

The state of Massachusetts continues to be home to many Native American people, including the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, who recently had to contend with an appeal by the United States Interior Department in 2020 to revoke the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's reservation designation. This appeal was withdrawn in February 2021. This is only one of the most recent events in a long history of colonial oppression and violence by European Settlers and the United States Government. 

Land acknowledgments are an important step, but are not sufficient. We encourage you to educate yourself and advocate for the Native American community and Indigenous peoples in your area and beyond.

• To begin learning about the history of the treaties and territories on the land you occupy visit: Native Land.
• To lean more about the Mashpee Wamponoag Tribe visit: Mashpeee Wamponoag Tribe
• For more information on the Native American community of Massachusetts, please visit: North American Indian Center of Boston.
• For information on resources and services provided by the Commission on Indian Affairs of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, please visit: Commission on Indian Affairs, State of MA

This land acknowledgement was based upon the guidance from the following resources and organizations: 

• Guide to Indigenous Land and Territorial Acknowledgments for Cultural Institutions 
• The Upstander Project
• Native Land