Sunday, March 8, 2020 - 18:30
Intersectional Perspectives on Climate Justice: MAXIMA
Screening and Panel
Intersectional and indigenous perspectives on climate justice
Location & Time: Berliner Union Film Ateliers - 18:30
Tickets available online here
Event Information
This program will look at the climate justice movement through an intersectional lens to ask what role gender, race, and social economic structures play in the climate crisis and how it is affecting lives and nature. Indigenous people, especially women, have been are the forefront of environmental struggles for long, yet are underrepresented in the media’s narrative on climate activism.
Film: MAXIMA
MAXIMA tells the incredible true story of the Peruvian farmer Máxima Acuña who stood up to one of the largest gold-mining companies in the world and triumphed.
On her farm in the Peruvian highlands, Máxima Acuña grew up surrounded by mountains, lakes and natural water systems. As a multi-billion-dollar mining project is launched in the area by the American Newmont Mining Corporation, Máxima decides to fight for justice to protect the land, the water supply and the indigenous people from environmental destruction at American hands. Nature to her and her neighbours is understood to be an integral part of life and she will not let it be abused for capitalist interests.
MAXIMA tracks the journey from the Peruvian Andes all the way through the Peruvian Supreme Court to the door of the World Bank in Washington D.C.. A journey that will involve conflict, eviction, violence and criminal prosecution. Máxima Acuña’s relentless grassroot activism and stand against the destruction of natural resources was awarded with the world’s most prestigious environmental award, the Goldman Environmental Prize.
Panel discussion:
Followed by a panel on intersectional perspectives on climate justice. In the panel, we want to ask what role gender, race, ethnicity and economic inequality play when it comes to climate change. How can the climate movement be a more inclusive movement and make BIPOC voices heard? And what can we learn from indigenous activists at the forefront of the climate movement?
Guests:
Felesmira Glandien is a Peruvian activist, who has been living in Berlin for 30 years. She is active in the climate and the indigenous rights movement. She is part of the Peruvian Women’s Initiative Warmis, which is an indigenous word for women. Warmis organizes events to spread awareness about indigenous rights and the discrimination of indigenous people as well as about the political and social situation in Peru and Latin America.
Avrina Jos is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Göttingen. Her project envisions to theorize the future of the feminist movement amidst global technological and climate change. She has an MA in English Philology, during which she studied the historicization of the British Women’s Liberation Movement in the radical feminist magazine Trouble & Strife. For her thesis, she won the Niedersachsen Research Award and Gender Thesis Award in 2019. Also a creative writer, her short story The Plumage was shortlisted for the Berlin Writing Prize 2019. (www.avrinajos.net).
Isadora Cardoso works with GenderCC-Women for Climate Justice, an NGO fighting for climate and gender justice globally. Isadora holds a MA in development studies and has been working since 2015 with sustainable development, gender equality and climate change issues in international organizations and NGOs. At GenderCC, she manages the project “Not without us! Climate justice and gender justice in international climate politics”, which seeks to promote the integration of gender justice in international climate politics and within the global climate justice movement, along with a selected activists and gender experts from environmental groups and women’s organizations, from South Africa, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Fiji, Germany and Brazil.
Dr. Malika Virah-Sawmy is a visiting Scientist at the Humboldt University Berlin. She works in the Science and Policy interphase especially focusing on the agriculture-energy-environment nexus. Her work in this field has involved improving sustainability standards, establishing deforestation-free supply chains, defining low-carbon pathways for urban development, enabling equitable green growth and responsible mining. Previously, Dr. Virah Sawny worked for many years on the ground on conservation and agricultural programs in Madagascar, Congo and several Indian Ocean islands.