Tuesday 6 December 2022

MSA Online seminar: Solidarity in times of Crisis



Online Public Seminar, Malta Sociological Association:
Solidarity in Times of Crisis - Verena Fink / Vanja Petrovic

Date: Thursday 15 December 2022
Time: 7.30pm (CET) via Zoom

To register kindly send an email to: maltasociologicalassociation@gmail.com


As part of its “Visibility of the Invisible” series, during December, the Universal Human Rights Month, the Malta Sociological Association (MSA) is organizing an online public event to mark the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as International Volunteer Day, Human Rights Day and International Human Solidarity Day.

Our guest speakers will be:

Ms. Verena Fink, educator and trauma therapist (Greece)

Title: “Solidarity as an answer to the economic crisis and people on the flee in Greece”

Ms. Vanja Petrovic, journalist and PhD candidate (USA/Serbia)
Title: “Cooking in solidarity as a decolonial feminist practice”

Moderator: Ms. Ljiljana Cumura, Chair of the MSA Academic Sub-Committee

About the speakers:

Verena Fink was born 1973 in Germany some km close to the French borders. Did not get to know the grandparents from Ukraine and Russia. Education: M.A. LMU University Munich/Germany (Drama studies, German language, Art history), Pedagogy studies (Theatre pedagogy / educational play, University Munich), Experiential education / Outdoor Training (Pedagogical Academy Linz, Austria), Integrative Trauma Therapy (Institute for Trauma Therapy MIT, Munich, Germany), Training in Sociocracy (Diploma as Sociocratic Facilitator, Certified Sociocratic Expert). After 25 years in Munich /Germany now since 2017 in Thessaloniki/Greece. Educator (cultural and political seminars), trauma therapist, Sociocratic facilitator and Expert. Convinced European and freelancer, climate activist and strong believer in solidarity. Firmly decided not to learn a 4th foreign language. As a volunteer in different antiracist projects, member of the coordination team of Ecopolis, a social space in Thessaloniki for solidarity and ecology, responsible for food / clothes distributions and still writing a blog, speaking around Europe about what is happening in Greece with the refugees.

Vanja Petrović is a PhD student of social work at the University of Belgrade. She is also a recipient of Circle U’s mobility grant for early career researchers. As part of the program, she is working with professor Eivind Engrebretsen and other colleagues at the University of Oslo’s Center for Sustainable Healthcare education on exploring cooking as an ethnographic methodology. The act of cooking together or of cooking for someone immediately connects us across racial, gender, political, economic, and other lines. Looking into this act can help “bring the researcher down a peg” on equal footing with the researchee. This idea was born out of Vanja’s experience as an organizer of the Novi Sad Kitchen of Solidarity. Through her work in the kitchen, Vanja also developed an interest in exploring how feminist goals can be accomplished and principles maintained in spaces that were not explicitly feminist or “feminist-forward.” This led her to thinking about the “end user” or “beneficiary” of such non-hierarchical spaces, though they may be difficult to pinpoint, particularly his or her positionality in such a deeply idealistic project, which is the core of her current PhD thesis work.

#StandUp4HumanRights