Roberto Bedoya is a writer and cultural activist. He is the former executive director of the Tucson Pima Arts Council, Tucson AZ, where he instituted the innovative P.L.A.C.E. (People, Land, Arts, Culture and Engagement) Initiative, a civic engagement/placemaking platform that supports artists’ projects that address critical community issues. He has consistently supported artists-centered cultural practices and advocated for expanded definitions of inclusion and belonging throughout his career. His essays U.S. Cultural Policy: Its Politics of Participation, Its Creative Potential; Creative Placemaking and the Politics of Belonging and Dis-Belonging (link), and Spatial Justice: Rasquachification, Race and the City (link) have informed the discussion on cultural policy to shed light on exclusionary practices in cultural policy decision making.