Building Inclusion in Places: A Conversation with Marsha Ramroop
In a thought-provoking conversation on placemaking and inclusion, our Creative Director and host, Tanisha sits down with Marsha Ramroop, author of Building Inclusion. They explore how we can create more inclusive places and spaces.
The discussion reveals powerful insights about cultural intelligence, the importance of listening to unheard voices, and why inclusion must be built consciously into our environments.
Marsha’s journey into the built environment
Marsha introduces herself as an inclusion strategist with a particular passion for the built environment. Her fundamental belief drives her work: "If we don't have inclusive spaces, we can't have inclusive society." Before focusing on inclusion full-time, Marsha had a 30-year career in broadcasting, working at the BBC where she developed community storytelling projects and inclusive recruitment programmes.
She now runs her business called "Unheard Voice," with the mission of "giving the unheard voice a place to speak." Her experience in broadcasting—going into communities, supporting storytelling, and ensuring diverse representation—has translated perfectly into her current work in the built environment sector.
“If we don’t have inclusive spaces, we can’t have an inclusive society.”
The Meaning of Place
When asked about her definition of place, Marsha offers this thoughtful perspective: "It's anywhere that there is a human... the absence of a human means that it's not a place." For her, places become meaningful through human connections and experiences.
Marsha shares her personal journey of living in approximately 15 different places between the ages of 18 and 35. Despite this nomadic lifestyle, she felt a surprising sense of familiarity and warmth when returning to her childhood home in Harrow years later. This experience helped her understand the concept of "social affection"—loving where you live and having that "warmth of place."
While New Zealand holds a special place in her heart from her travels, Marsha considers her home in Derby with her girls and her husband as her favourite place now. She describes it as "big enough to matter, small enough to care," highlighting its industrial heritage as the home of planes, trains, and automobiles - Rolls Royce engines, trains, and Toyota car manufacturing.
Breaking Down EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion)
Marsha shares clear definitions of the terms often grouped together as "EDI":
Diversity: "The fact of visible and invisible difference." Everyone is part of diversity, but Marsha suggests that a more useful term is "addressing under-representation."
Inclusion: "The act where everyone is valued, respected, and accepted for who they are." Inclusion focuses on behaviours rather than identity characteristics.
Equity: Different from equality, equity is about "making up for historic imbalance" and "addressing individual needs."
She explains how these concepts work together: "Diversity is the fact, inclusion is the act, equity is the impact." Marsha emphasises that the focus should be on inclusion through behaviours, not just diversity for its own sake.
Interestingly, Marsha challenges the addition of "Belonging" to create "DEIB," arguing that belonging is "a personal choice, not an organisational imperative." Organisations should focus on creating inclusive environments, but individuals decide where they feel they belong.
She emphasises that diversity alone doesn't lead to better business outcomes—it's only valuable when "managed well in inclusive cultures." Without structural and procedural changes to support diversity, underrepresented groups will continue to leave organisations and sectors.
Understanding Cultural Intelligence
Marsha explains that cultural intelligence (CQ) is the capability to work and relate effectively across differences. Developed over two decades and researched across 170 countries, the CQ framework consists of four key capabilities:
Motivation - Your drive to work and relate effectively across differences, especially during challenging or uncomfortable situations.
Knowledge - Understanding various backgrounds and belief systems, while recognising you can never know everything about everyone.
Strategy - Planning for interactions with heightened self-awareness of power dynamics, racial dynamics, and gender dynamics to avoid tokenistic or stereotypical actions.
Action - Developing a broad repertoire of adaptable behaviours, as people ultimately judge us on our behaviours.
This framework provides an academically robust approach to behaving inclusively, which can transform organisational cultures and improve how we create places.
Using a journey analogy, Marsha explains how these concepts relate:
If diversity is the landscape
And inclusion is the road to get to equitable outcomes
Then cultural intelligence is the best vehicle to get us there
Reframing Place-making as Place-enabling
One of the more provocative questions Marsha poses is: "Who's doing the making?" She challenges the very concept of "placemaking" as potentially egocentric, suggesting instead that professionals consider themselves as "place enablers" or "facilitators" who help communities make the best use of spaces.
"Isn't there an opportunity just to even to step back from thinking of oneself as a place maker, as maybe a place enabler or maybe or facilitator in some way," Marsha suggests, encouraging a shift in mindset that centres on community needs rather than professional ego.
The Power of Listening to Unheard Voices
For those working in placemaking and development, Marsha's advice is clear: listen. But not just to the loudest voices or most accessible residents' associations. She emphasises the importance of engaging with those who are typically unheard:
“What about the single parent who has to hold down two or three jobs, working the gig economy to pay the bills? How are you going to engage with them? Because they’re not going to stop and do your survey... but they’re the ones whose lives need to be made easier.”
This requires new approaches to engagement that go beyond traditional consultation methods, recognising that those who don't speak up are often in the majority but are silenced by lack of access to participation opportunities.
Building Trust in Development
For developers looking to build trust with communities, Marsha references the trust equation: trust equals credibility plus reliability plus intimacy. This translates to:
Doing what you say you will
Showing up and delivering with integrity
Being authentic and vulnerable when mistakes happen
Listening, learning, reflecting, and responding appropriately
She challenges the current planning process, suggesting that co-creation with communities earlier in the development process would likely lead to better outcomes and fewer battles later. "We can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result," she notes, echoing Einstein's famous quote.
Examples of Inclusive Places
When asked about examples of inclusive places, Marsha highlights London's Elizabeth Line, which has been transformative for people with disabilities. She shares the story of a wheelchair user, whom she met on a panel with Engineers Without Borders UK, who felt like crying when using the Elizabeth Line for the first time because it offered him the freedom to travel with the same ease that able-bodied people take for granted.
She also points to Vienna's "gender mainstreaming" approach to urban planning, which prioritises designs that work for women but ultimately benefits everyone. "When it's (made to be) inclusive of one group, it tends to be inclusive of many more," she explains, adding that "it's inclusion for all or it's not inclusion at all."
Addressing Backward Trends in Diversity
When confronted with the troubling statistic that the percentage of women in senior leadership in real estate has dropped from 32% in 2016 to 25% in 2024, Marsha identifies several factors:
Complacency around diversity issues
Lack of systemic approaches to tackling discrimination
COVID-19 embedding biased opinions due to "enforced cognitive bubbles"
The fallacy of "unbiased" behaviour in hiring and salary decisions
Lack of accountability for organisations failing to make progress
She calls for professional institutions to mandate explicit strategies to tackle gender discrimination, focusing on progression, performance management, and remuneration policies that create systemic change.
Hope for the Future
Despite these challenges, Marsha remains optimistic. "It's entirely within our hands to create these things," she affirms. By taking responsibility for our own behaviours and the implementation of policies and practices, we can make meaningful change.
"You can't change people's identities, but you can change your own behaviours," she emphasises. "Very small shifts start to make really big differences."
As Tanisha aptly summarises: "If we all start to behave in a way that's more human, more kind, with more kindness, more empathy with each other... the world will be a more inclusive place."
Marsha Ramroop's book "Building Inclusion" provides a comprehensive framework for creating inclusive environments and cultures. To learn more about her work, visit www.unheardvoice.co.uk or follow her on social media @MarshaRamroop.
“Unless we are consciously building inclusion into our world, we’re almost definitely unconsciously building in exclusion.”
Curious to know more about Marsha Ramroop and her insights?
Tune in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube to hear Tanisha Raffiuddin and Marsha Ramroop’s conversation on the need more placemakers in politics
Stay connected with us on Talking Place’s Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Bluesky, and TikTok for updates on upcoming episodes, where Tanisha talks with experts across the built environment. From placemaking and branding to sustainability, finance, health, culture, and more, each episode shares valuable insights and practical advice to help inspire your place-based projects and initiatives.
‘Talk’ soon!