Something Between Us:

Join us to explore the deepening divides between us and how to repair them.

Co-hosted by Goodlife Collective and Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa.

We live in a time of growing division - in our communities, our politics, and our public spaces. But what if the walls between us aren't as fixed as they seem?

What hope is there if we can't live together across differences? While so much in the world separates us - our news, our infrastructure, our political debates, algorithms - what connects us? Who's reaching across the divide, and seeking to understand? And what happens when more of us do?

On Tuesday 21 April 2026, as Aotearoa heads toward an election, Goodlife Collective and WEAll invite you to a timely and hopeful conversation about what it means to truly meet across difference.

We are honoured to bring together two deep thinkers / practitioners, to learn about their work, research and experience in bridging divides in communities in America.

We will delve into how these ideas might apply to our context here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Meet the Speakers

Philip Lindsay - Director of Democracy Innovation
Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities

Dr Anand Pandian - Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University.

His books include Award-winning Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life and How to Take Them Down (2026: Zócalo Book Prize Finalist) and A Possible Anthropology: Methods for Uneasy Times.

Find Anand at: https://anand.studio

Facilitator: Gareth Hughes, Director - Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa

Convenor & Co-Facilitator: Freda Wells, Founder Goodlife Collective

What we'll explore

Join Anand and Philip for their reflections on how we got to where we are, and how we might heal a polarised world.

Topics will include:

ways to understand the deep social and political divides in society, and the everyday strategies that can overcome them
key concepts from Pandian's award-winning book: Something Between Us - 'an urgently needed account of how we might reimagine our communities in ways that anchor us to each other and our own humanity.'
How ethics shows up in everyday civic life
Why practices of whanaungatanga and relational responsibility matter for democracy

This is a space for collective inquiry, for anyone interested in deepening their understanding of how we can collectively shape a better world.

Let’s face towards the conversations we need to have, to explore what a healthy future is asking of us in how we listen, speak, and remain in relation.

Please join us for this timely conversation.

Event Details

Date Tuesday, 21 April 2026
Time 9:00am – 10:30am NZST
Format Online Via Zoom (link provided upon registration)

About Philip Lindsay

Before joining the Hannah Arendt Center, Philip helped run a small community health center in NYC for immigrant communities. He has a BA in Latin American Studies from Temple University, where he focused on political economy and social movements. He spent a year in Germany as a Congress-Bundestag (CBYX) Fellow focusing on the politics of climate change. In his free time, he enjoys organizing intimate concerts and building community through the arts.

About Anand Pandian
Anand Pandian is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. His books include Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life and How to Take Them Down, and A Possible Anthropology: Methods for Uneasy Times. Anand also serves as a curator of the Ecological Design Collective, a community for radical ecological imagination and collaboration. He lives with his family in Baltimore, where he is currently working on a new book project on the global fight to build a zero waste future, anchored in stories from the United States, India, Ghana, and Spain.

https://anand.studio/

Book Reviews:

"This is not a book, to start with, but an experience. I would rank it as some of the best writing by just about anyone lately about the ways our environments, our infrastructure, and our politics keep us divided, topics that are not easy to write about well or at all. I am glad he did that work; he created something truly wonderful as a result."

 —Joshua Reno, co-author of Imagining the Heartland: White Supremacy and the American Midwest

"A beautifully written antidote to help us examine and overcome the many real and imagined walls in America that only seem to foster anger, ignorance, and the misunderstandings that prevent us from seeing our shared humanity. Pandian writes about a country in turmoil with grace and kindness using insight that can only come from a keen ethnographic eye."

 —Jason De León, author of Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling, winner of the National Book Award  "

Applying his 'anthropology of the open mind' to the concrete ways we separate ourselves from each other, Pandian explores how our collective material culture generates and sustains social, political, and ontological division. This is a remarkable book, notable for its tough questions, even-handed rigor, and indefatigable compassion. It offers a piercing, necessary, and humane look deep into contemporary American culture."

 —Roy Scranton, author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization

About the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa (WEAll)

WEAll Aotearoa is a non-partisan and independent ‘think and do’ tank working to redesign Aotearoa New Zealand’s economy around the wellbeing of people and te taiao.

WEAll use an evidence-informed approach and focus upstream to develop practical, long-term solutions for the public good.

WEAll is a registered charity and funded through philanthropic grants and donations.

About Goodlife Collective

Goodlife Collective creates events for people who believe the world could be healthier - and want to help make it so. Based in Aotearoa, they bring together thinkers, doers, and curious humans to explore what it takes to rehumanise our systems and create a world we love. Expect good conversations and connections, horizon-expanding ideas, and moments that refuel your hope and agency.

Goodlife Collective operates under charitable status through the Gift Collective.

www.goodlifecollective.org

Contact the host of Something Between Us: the 'walls' between us and how to take them down