Professor Vicki Ann Cremona 'Empowering Civil Society. Murder, corruption and political activism in Malta'.
Empowering Civil Society. Murder, corruption and political activism in Malta
The Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered by of means of a car bomb on 16 October 2017, just after having written the following on her blog Running Commentary:
“There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate”.
Caruana Galizia was investigating corruption involving the highest echelons of government and business in the country. The state’s effort to play down the murder was resisted by both Caruana Galizia’s family and a civil society movement, which sprang up when it quickly became obvious that it was in the government’s interest to lure attention away from the crime. Taking as a starting point Michel Foucault’s concept of state and corporate power, the talk focuses on the mechanisms of corruption, and civil society’s efforts to resist it. It traces the growth and empowerment of the civil society movement Repubblika, and its efforts to take on Caruana Galizia’s struggle against state capture.
About Vicki Ann
Vicki Ann Cremona is Chair of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Malta, and Professor within the Theatre Studies Department. She was Ambassador of Malta to France (2005-2009), and to Tunisia (2009-2013). She was member of and rapporteur for the EU Evaluation Committee for the Valletta Capital of Culture 2018. Her research interests lie in history and historiography of theatre, public performance and theatre spaces. She has published mainly about Carnival, Maltese Theatre, Commedia dell’Arte, Tunisian theatre and theatre laboratories. She has also co-authored, co-edited, and translated various books including Playing Culture. Conventions and Extensions of Performance (Brill-Rodopi 2014). Her latest book publication is Carnival and Power. Play and Politics in a Crown Colony (Palgrave Macmillan 2018). She is a member of Project on European Theatre Systems (STEP) and is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Theatre Research.