amalia deloney, J.D.

“What if belonging wasn’t something you earned by how long you’d been somewhere — but something a place practiced, together, every time it decided what to keep, what to change, and who gets to decide?”

I am a Guatemalan-born transborder designer, speculative futurist, and legal strategist. For thirty years, my practice has bridged public interest law, strategic foresight, and popular education—working at the neighborhood, watershed, and regional scale with communities navigating climate shift, displacement, and institutional transition.Grounded in two decades directing national policy departments and multi-million dollar funder collaboratives, I treat imagination as load-bearing civic infrastructure. As Principal, Civic Futures at Narrative Arts, I help build community-led infrastructure connecting narrative practice, futures, and health equity across North Carolina and the US South. Through my independent practice at Point A Studio, I design speculative governance protocols and spatial labs that allow communities and living systems to inhabit their own futures.

SPECULATIVE PROTOCOLS & ARTIFACTS

A Field Almanac for Listening: A physical practice and artifact exploring re-arrival and belonging, asking people to notice a place before deciding anything about it.The Inundation Accord: A speculative governance workshop where a Chesapeake oyster, a night heron, and sixteen humans negotiated a 2060 flood future in Baltimore.Asking the Water First: A design methodology positioning rivers, creeks, and living systems as the primary planners in any corridor.