Sabrina Bazile is a Haitian-American urban planner, housing policy researcher, writer, and political theorist. Their work focuses on developing a theory of communal governance and its implications for democracy, planning, housing, and political economy. Sabrina critiques liberalism and racial capitalism within a communist theoretical framework while arguing for a reconstruction of democracy beyond liberalism through communal political traditions of governance. Planning, public policy, public housing, and community stewardship serve as primary sites through which the theory of communal governance is developed, tested, and institutionalized.

Sabrina's work bridges theory and practice, drawing on their experience in public-sector planning, housing policy, and community-based research to investigate how communal governance can transform planning philosophy and working-class political power. 

Research Approach
Sabrina explores planning as a political practice, focusing on how racial capitalism, political economy, and governance influence housing systems, working-class communities, and collective life. Their research aims to answer the question: “What forms of governance make democracy possible beyond liberalism?” Sabrina argues that liberal democracy is characterized by irreconcilable conceptual and historical contradictions rooted in racial capitalism.

Drawing on the Black Radical Tradition, Indigenous governance traditions, and histories of mutualism and cooperative political economy, Bazile develops a theory of communal governance by identifying and synthesizing the foundational principles and social practices shared across diverse communal political traditions, including collective stewardship, mutual aid, cooperative economics, care work, and the social reproduction of labor. From these traditions, Sabrina reconstructs democracy as a form of communal self-government rather than a model of liberal governance.

Education
Sabrina holds a B.A. in Marketing Innovation & New Media, Information Systems, and Operations Management & E-Commerce from Suffolk University, and an M.S. in City & Regional Planning (now Urban & Community Planning, MS) from Pratt Institute. Sabrina also holds an Advanced Certificate in Workplace Democracy and Community Ownership from the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and was an Economic Democracy Fellow with Brooklyn Communities Collaborative.

Curriculum Vitae

Sabrina created a tool to help planners unlearn dominant planning pedagogies.

For collaborations, speaking engagements, questions, or to say hello, please email me.