Sina Muscarina


Main focus: Polyamory, Non-Monogamies

Twitter handle: @sinamuscarina

Website/blog: http://sinamuscarina.wordpress.com

Languages: German, English, Portuguese

City: Vienna

Canton: Zurich

Country: Switzerland

Topics: non-monogamies, lgbti* nursing care, lgbti* ageing, recovery and lgbti*

Services: Talk, Consulting

  Willing to travel for an event.

  Willing to talk for nonprofit.

Bio:

Sina Muscarina (*1975), M.A., is a social*entrepreneur, who earned her Masters degree in Psychology at the University of Vienna. She gathers a profound and authentic understanding of a variety of alternative lifestyles and alternative sexualities for more than a decade. Her special focus is Polyamory. Practicing and studying different and effective methods of exploring and broadening the spectrum of consciousness for achieving improved psychological resilience is her professional goal. Has experience living in and loves NYC, Lisboa and Berlin, and is a passionate couchsurfer when travelling.

Examples of previous talks / appearances:

Paraflows 2016- Id/entity: Entwürfe - Erzählungen - Perspektiven

Auf Basis sich verbreiternder Informationsmaterialien und damit auch vielfältigen Angeboten zur Arbeit am Ich wird die Frage nach dem Bauplan des modernen Subjekts neu reflektiert. Insbesondere Aspekte der Normierung sowie des Verhältnisses unseres Ichs zum Netz und damit verbundene Machtstrukturen finden sich in der Auseinandersetzung. Als Quelle von Sinn und Erfahrung (Castells) grenzt Identität immer auch an Prozesse der Sinnkonstruktion, der Identifikation, an persönliche oder soziale Ziele und kulturelle Attribute. Die Baumaterialien unserer Identitäten sind vielfältig: Religion, Biologie, Klasse, Rasse, Geschlecht, Kollektive, Phantasie, Kultur sowie Zeit sind nur einige der Quellen, auf die wir bei der Konstruktion unseres Ichs zurückgreifen. Durch mediale Prozesse und Simulationen stellt sich zunehmend die Frage nach der Verarbeitung und Präsentation unserer Identitäten, die in Bezug auf Selbstdarstellung und soziale Rollen im Einklang, Widerspruch oder Konflikt stehen können.

Dennoch stellen wir uns Identität als jene Form vor, die nach außen abgeschlossen und stabil ist und nach innen über ein Bewusstsein von sich selbst verfügt, das keine allzu großen Widersprüche aushalten muss. Inwieweit aber stellen uns aktuelle gesellschaftliche und mediale Strukturen vor die Herausforderung, diese Widersprüche zu integrieren?

Identität ist auch Selbstbeherrschung: Das mit sich selbst identische Subjekt ist der „Staat im Staat in der ersten Person“, wie es in einem frühen Song der Gruppe Blumfeld heißt. Juristische Identität ist der Ausgangspunkt für den freien Willen, für die autonome Person und die individuelle Freiheit. Im Namen jener Entität, die wir in der Identität geworden sind, kommunizieren und verhandeln wir miteinander. Vor allem aber ist Identität Arbeit an sich selbst, über performative Akte oder ökonomische und kapitalistische Anrufungen. So verwalten und verwerten wir uns und werden dadurch auch berechenbar: nicht nur da, wo uns Identitätswaren im Sinne der Gruppenzugehörigkeit oder eines Lebensstils angeboten werden.

1st International Conference on Queering Partnering

Presenter

Queering Partnering is the 1st International Conference stemming from the large ERC funded study INTIMATE: Citizenship, Care and Choice – The micro-politics of intimacy in Southern Europe (www.ces.uc.pt/intimate). This year the Conference will focus on LGBT/queer partnering.

The ways in which people choose to be, or are constrained into being, coupled have been at the centre of public debates on intimate citizenship. From legal demands voiced by activists to the de/construction of love and relationality proposed by academics and the constant advancement and setbacks echoed by the media, never as strongly as today could we speak of diversity when it comes to partnering.

Faced with challenges advanced by non-heteronormative partners, the time has come to think critically about queer intimate relationships.

1st Non-Monogamies and Contemporary Intimacies Conference

The year 2015 marks the official launch of the Non-Monogamies and Contemporary Intimacies, a project intended to be continued and replicated in the upcoming years, in other places. More than a single conference, we aim to create a platform to encourage European and worldwide research on (consensual) non-monogamies and other under-researched topics dealing with contemporary intimacies, like asexuality and a-romanticism.

Among the issues we are concerned about, we can list the following:

Research around the lived experiences of non-monogamies, especially those considered consensual;
Ideological and representational changes in how intimacies are thought of;
Intersections with race, sex-gender, sexual orientation, kinship, kink, sex work, class, culture, religion, dis/ability, asexuality, a-romanticism
Activism and community-building around non-monogamies;
Reproduction of normativities and resistances: polynormativity and relationship anarchy, neo-liberalism and political contestation;
Evolution of scientific discourses on non-monogamies;
Challenges to counseling, psychotherapy, (public) health and legal frameworks around non-monogamies;
The roles of mass media and new technologies around transformations of intimacy.

Polyamory - Loving more than One. A biographical portrait of non-monogamous relationship cultures

Polyamory. Loving More than One
A biographical portrait of non-monogamous relationship cultures

In the mainstream of academic Psychology, the concept of the monogamous relationship
between two people is rarely called into question. The work at hand will fill a gap in this
respect and should be understood as a contribution toward establishing academic openness
to the concerns of polyamorous human beings.
Interviews were conducted over Skype as the method of compiling data and their
phenomenological premises as well as those of interaction and communication theories
were reconstructed according to the narrative data analysis of Schütze (1983). The
biographies of one woman and one man stand in the forefront.
It holds true for both interview partners that they oriented themselves toward a
monogamous relationship model and processed the same during biographically significant
phases of their early adulthoods. In both cases – more noticeably in the man’s than the
woman’s – the biographical representation oriented itself on an emotional transformation
process with regard to the monogamous/polyamorous life (theme), with relatively little
account taken of external criteria such as people or chronological data in contrast.
The interviews are strongly distinguished by depictions of polyamory based on their own
theories whereby creating theories on polyamory can be comparable to a certain processing
phase and could definitely constitute the nucleus of a typical phase in polyamorous
biographies – as a specific stage in the processing or incorporation of a life theme. It deals
with a sort of auto-therapeutic narrative of self-formation in the sense of Illouz with an
upward trending curve or with seeing an intentionally experienced scheme of selfenhancement
as a sort of therapeutic project in and of itself.
Another distinctive track for interpreting polyamorous forms of life is a psychological
technique called „amor fati“, which means the retrospective affirmation of an originally
difficult fate. Whether this motive, which also appears here under the cover of ideas of
karma, is widespread in the polyamorous community and what function it has would be
interesting for further research.
In both interviews it becomes clear that some of the difficulties accompanying the
polyamorous life can be defused by communities living in a like-minded way. Collectivizing
his own experience enables the man to transition from a deficient and very inwardly
referential self-perception to one that is positive and progressive – one that can also gain
membership in a larger socio-political picture.
Fundamentally, the biographies are represented as success stories. They develop in the
sense of emancipation from a social embedding that is experienced as damaging to a
positively perceived social organization. Polyamory reveals itself prospectively as a fragile
and suspenseful project constituting a process between success and hope.

2nd Non Monogamies and Contemporary Intimacies Conference 2017

"Psychological Transformations in Biographical Narratives"
Sina Muscarina (M.A.) is a social*entrepreneur, who earned a Master‘s degree in Psychology at the University of Vienna. Sina assembles a profound and authentic understanding of a variety of alternative lifestyles for more than a decade.
Sina‘s special focus is Polyamory and the Master's thesis is available as book.
Practicing and studying different and effective methods of exploring and broadening the spectrum of consciousness for achieving improved psychological resilience is Sina Muscarina‘s professional goal.

http://sinamuscarina.com (full lecture available in writing [EN])

2nd NMCI Conference held in Vienna, Austria, 2017 at the Sigmund Freud University

This talk is in: English
Aspects of LGBTI*ageing and aged care nursing in german speaking Europe - a literature review

Nursing Care for ageing Sexual Minorities is a relatively new area of research. A literature review suggests a dearth of nursing care facilities for LGBTI* seniors and limited knowledge of nurses about specified LGBTI* health issues. This descriptive thesis views historical implications influencing the biographies of ageing LGBTI* members, which in turn imprint nursing care agendas. Role models for nursing theories suitable for LGBTI* people and their specific histories are introduced in this work as well. Further the thesis views projects in german speaking Europe and schooling possibilities for nurses on needs of LGBTI* seniors. It seems important to broaden the competences of nurses relating to LGBTI* elders with embedding necessary training in schooling curricula.

Full reference available at my homepage (German)
https://sinamuscarina.com/2016/10/03/pflege-von-geriatrischen-lgbti-menschen-in-unterschiedlichen-pflegeeinrichtungen/

This talk is in: English
Mit Sicherheit verliebt - Wie wollen wir Beziehungen leben?

"Wie möchte ich Beziehungen führen?"

Sina Muscarina

In diesem Workshop geht es um Polyamorie. Nach kurzem Input zu verschiedenen Beziehungsformen, werden Gedanken angeregt zum Thema "Normen rund um Liebesbeziehungen:
Mono/Normativity und Polynormativität." Nach diesem
Austausch lernen wir den "Charmed Circle" kennen und stellen uns die Frage, wie gesellschaftliche Strukturen unsere Werte und Haltungen beeinflussen. Hier beziehen wir uns auch auf Diskriminierung von polyamorösen Beziehungen und konsensuellen Formen nicht monoaffektiver Sexualitäten.
Darauf aufbauend geht es um die Umwertung von Werten nach Nietzsche: Welche Gemeinsamkeiten gibt es bei Werthaltungen und moralischen Konstrukten bei Mono und Poly - Liebe

This talk is in: German