Reflective Workshop on Hoping, Coping and Resisting

Date: Wednesday February 4th 2026

Time: 11:00-13:00

Register Via This Form

About the workshop:

As socially engaged scholars and activists we engage in a field that is characterized by social inequality, injustices, and polarization. We are our own learning instrument: we open our senses, mind and heart to observe, analyse to position ourselves and possibly contribute to change in social issues in the world.

Yet social change is usually a slow and bumpy process. It requires patience that often stands in stark contrast with the sense of urgency that we feel about the need for change. As a consequence, feelings of hopelessness, despair, guilt, anger and pain for the world (Macy), feelings of disconnectedness (Brown) as well as activism burnout (Proctor) are real things in our field.

Therefore, if socially engaged scholarship and activism is about engaging ourselves in the real world, and considering the state of the real world, we also need to create space to stay sane in the process. Taking care of our own mental wellbeing is part and parcel of socially engaged scholarship and activism as it helps us to maintain healthy relationships with our partners in the field, and with ourselves.

This workshop is about the work in progress of hoping, coping and resisting: how to continuously and strategically position yourself in relation to issues of inequality, racism, (post-)colonialism, climate disasters and -injustices in your work, research and in life in general, while staying sane in the process.

Based on our favourite inspirational key readings, we will discuss concrete tools for and practice with things like:

•             Maintaining active hope amid the chaos (Joanna Macy)

•             Emergent strategies to create a compelling future through relatively simple interactions (adrienne maree brown)

•             How to deal with burnout in the face of despair (Hanna Proctor)

•             How rest is resistance (Tricia Hersey)

The set-up of this reflective workshop will be co-creative, interactive, light and kind, so low on lecturing, high on easy inspirational and embodied activities and sharing. You don’t need to prepare. If you have it, we ask you to bring one book or text that inspires you and offers you concrete tools for the practice of hoping, coping and resisting.

Marieke van Houte will help us to facilitate this reflective workshop. 

About Marieke: