Movement Researcher | Writer | DJ
I support clients + movements with detailed data,
rigorous research + relational values.
I'm an independent scholar + research consultant with a collaborative spirit.
I have over a decade of experience combining quantitative and qualitative methods to advance strategic policy solutions and campaigns among community groups, non-profit organizations, and government agencies in the Bay Area. I have a PhD in geography from UC Berkeley and a BA in urban studies from Brown University, where I have also taught as a visiting lecturer. Learn more about how I can help you turn your research questions into real-world impact.
I’m also an author, cultural producer, and DJ. My book, On Loop: Black Sonic Politics in Oakland (UC Press), explores the centrality of Black dance music and soundscapes to the everyday social movements that have made and remade this iconic and contested city. I have published essays on public art, gentrification, and race in Africa Is a Country, Antipode, City, FIELD, Journal of Popular Music Studies, and Sounding Out. I have served as a Curatorial Fellow at Oakland's Matatu Festival of Stories, a Public Imagination Fellow at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and a member of the research team that produced Oakland’s 2018 Cultural Plan. Learn more about On Loop and my upcoming book events.
I currently live in Northampton, Massachusetts, where I grew up. I primarily work with clients in the Bay Area, but I’m open to inquiries about new projects anywhere that I can be of service remotely or with limited travel. I look forward to connecting with you!
I help clients use data to tell stories that can shift structures.
I have years of training in social science research methods. But my most valuable experience has come from working with coalitions and grassroots leaders to translate the lived expertise of impacted communities into the language of policy.
I have worked extensively on research and campaigns related to housing justice, tenants' rights, and cultural policy. But I bring the same set of core competencies and commitments to every unique project:
I delve deeply into data and best practices.​
I center values and strategy in all aspects of the research process.​
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I translate data in a clear manner that lifts up the heart of the matter.
I work collaboratively across diverse stakeholder groups.​
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I manage complex processes across remote teams.​
I leverage text, media, and design to reach key audiences.​
Whether you're trying to reach grassroots members, community partners, elected officials, or funders, I can help you articulate the wisdom of your constituents, communities, or coalitions through equal parts head and heart—data and values—by providing a range of services:
Developing creative methods to answer complex questions.
Conducting quantitative/qualitative research, literature reviews, and field scans to inform policy or strategy.
Providing rigorous statistics, insightful analyses, and compelling research products to make winning advocacy arguments.
Creating maps that power critical analysis of social/spatial questions.
Analyzing policies, recommending improvements, and designing campaign strategies to shift political outcomes.
Evaluating and refining organizational programs to achieve strategic goals.
Select Clients +
Work Samples
Some of my past clients include the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, East Bay Housing Organizations, Just Cities, and the City of Oakland's Cultural Affairs Division.
Alex is among the most strategic, thoughtful, and talented researchers and writers that I have ever encountered in my 25 years of movement work. One of his superpowers is his ability to translate and communicate data, research, and analysis in clear and compelling ways for advocates and decision-makers. He has had a profound impact on advancing our policy campaigns for tenant protections at the city and county levels. His contributions have helped us secure wins that otherwise would not have been possible. I cannot recommend Alex highly enough if you want to up your game and bring added depth to your advocacy through ground-breaking research. He brings warmth, integrity, and intelligence to all that he does.
—​Kristi Laughlin, Deputy Director for Contra Costa, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE)
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Alex's work as a researcher and planning team member for the Oakland Cultural Plan, “Belonging in Oakland,” was exemplary. It illuminated his talent as an excellent writer and outstanding problem solver—one who knows how to work with both limits and openings. His ability to produce quantitative and qualitative research about the city's complex cultural assets has contributed much to subsequent policy arguments for equity and belonging. As a team member, he engaged with our multiple and diverse community stakeholders with principled leadership. He is a gem.​
—​Roberto Bedoya, former Cultural Affairs Manager, City of Oakland
On Loop is now available
in stores and online.
Chicago has house. Detroit has techno. But Oakland slaps.
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On Loop explores the role of Black dance music and sonic politics in recurring struggles over race and space in Oakland, California. Insisting on the centrality of sound in everyday social movements—from the mobilization of funk music and boogaloo dance during Black Power to the policing of the Hyphy Movement in the 2000s—it argues that Black dance music is not merely a soundtrack to or record of resistance. Rather, its very sound waves have animated looping clashes over development, dispossession, and Black freedom. Diving deep into downtown nightclubs, Lake Merritt, and the Eastmont Mall—geographies rarely considered within studies of the city’s contested transformation—it reveals how the liberatory sonic politics of funk, hip-hop, and hyphy rap have been met with a repetitive “war on nuisance.”
As both a means of empowerment and a magnet for policing, Black dance music has transformed not only Oakland's nightlife, but also its streets, parks, and neighborhoods. On Loop is a rousing encounter with the sound that moves urban life.
Coverage of On Loop:
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"New Book 'On Loop' Details Oakland's Crackdowns on Black Sonic Expression," Gabe Meline, KQED Arts, October 2025
“For those who’ve lived in Oakland, or paid attention to its culture, much of On Loop will be familiar terrain...But Werth...brings a bird’s-eye perspective to these issues while unearthing telling details in decades-old police files and newspaper accounts...Anyone interested in Oakland culture, and the way it has been shaped as well as cauterized, will find his research valuable...With patience, focus, and deep research...Werth has written a book that will last.”
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"Author Alex Werth Discusses His New Book," Azucena Rasilla, Oaklandside, October 2025
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​“On Loop intellectually smashes racially-motivated overpolicing of Black music and culture while offering an alternative post-pandemic renaissance for The Town.”
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Book Lists:
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Top 15 most anticipated books "by authors on and of the West" from October 2025, according to Alta Journal.
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Top 12 books "of interest to African American scholars" from October 2025, according to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
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"Good reads to close out 2025," according to the Nob Hill Gazette.
Early praise for On Loop:
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"A pathbreaking exploration of the politics of sound, Alex Werth's On Loop reveals a dimension of power that's as important as it is invisible. Remixing fields and methods, we get to hear the frequencies of the Black freedom struggle emerge from the noise of Oakland's wrenching transformation."
—Alexis Madrigal, author of The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City and cohost of KQED's Forum
"Alex Werth’s On Loop is a formidable and breathtaking look at the intersection of Black sonic culture, spatial politics, and urban governance in an iconic city whose significance in American cultural geography and history has long been ignored. Werth offers us a crucial account of Oakland’s dynamic evolution to foreground the indispensability of Black cultural production in the making of the Town."
—Brandi Thompson Summers, author of Black in Place: The Spatial Aesthetics of Race in a Post-Chocolate City
Calendar of events.
Upcoming Events:​​
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Colloquium, UCLA Department of Geography
Monday, January 26th, 2:30-4pm
315 Portola Plaza, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
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I will be giving a talk titled "Slaps and the City: Mixing Sound and Space in Oakland's Black Geographies," which draws from my research for On Loop. The event is free and open to the public.​
Past Events:
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UC Berkeley Department of Geography
October 29th, 2025​​​​
Oakland Public Library
Book talk with Rickey Vincent (video)
October 30th, 2025​
Book Passage (San Francisco)
Book talk with Liam O'Donoghue
Saturday, November 1st​
Chapter 510 (Oakland)
Performance with Dorothy Lazard + DJ Kream
November 2nd, 2025​
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Northampton Community Arts Trust
Performance with César Alvarez
November 18th, 2025
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Rutgers University Department of Geography
December 5th