In Palestine, Sudan, Ukraine and many other settings, universities and university communities are not only caught in the crossfire of violent conflict, but often intentionally targeted because of their social, political and cultural significance.
Universities are attacked and bombed, while staff and students face death, injury, displacement or imprisonment, as well as disruption to learning, teaching and research.
In recent years, the rise of authoritarianism across the globe has thrown universities into the crosshairs of repressive states in growing confrontations between state power, corporate interests and democratic expression.
Student-led protests and encampments against the genocide and scholasticide in Gaza have clashed with university administrations across Europe, the United States and beyond. In response, many universities have used force and authoritarian measures against their own students and staff to silence such activism.
The circumstances facing universities in times of conflict differ according to the nature of the conflict and types of threats to institutions, staff and students. Yet, despite significant differences across civil war, foreign invasion, military occupation, political repression, protest and revolution, the university commonly emerges as a pivotal, contested and frequently targeted space – albeit one that has been under-researched and under-theorised in scholarly literature.
Neglect, resilience and resistance
Marginalised as a ‘luxury’ by international aid agencies and bilateral donors, universities in many conflict-affected countries were for a long time assumed to be non-functioning, or the domain of political elites. This was an ideological position, rooted in the neoliberal rejection of higher education as a public good and arguments for focusing exclusively on access to basic education in global development plans of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Over the past decade, catalysed by wars that have generated large refugee movements globally, there has been a renewed attention to the issues of higher education and conflict. But in focusing almost entirely on questions of international access and mobility, national higher education systems and institutions affected by conflict continue to be largely neglected.
This neglect renders invisible the immense losses and extraordinary resilience of universities in the face of adversity, silencing their internal struggles, calls for external support and attempts to recover and rebuild.
In Syria, for example, universities under state control and in the autonomous northeast Rojava region have struggled with isolation and minimal external support for many years. Yet, alternative educational models persist in Rojava despite continuing violence, embargoes and shifting political pressures. This illustrates that universities can be fragile yet inventive spaces when state structures collapse or withdraw.
In Palestine, universities have been attacked by the Israeli army for decades, escalating over the last two years to the physical destruction of every single university in Gaza and intensifying attacks in the West Bank. Yet, the universities continue to exist in defiance of attempts to annihilate them, conducting research and providing education to students.
The call for support from Gaza’s academics and administrators reminds us that universities are not just buildings but living academic communities and vital civic pillars of society.
Lack of scholarly focus
Coming together across different countries and regions, we have sought to address the lack of comprehensive scholarly focus on the systems and institutions of higher education in times of conflict.
This collaboration began with an international symposium on the theme of “Supporting and learning from universities in times of conflict: Towards resilience and resistance in higher education”, hosted by the Political Economy of Education Research (PEER) Network at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom in July 2023.
The symposium brought together participants from contexts across Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America.
Following the symposium, we worked with more than 40 scholars living and working in diverse contexts of conflict and exile, transnational academic networks, solidarity movements and inter- university partnerships to publish their work in a special issue recently launched in the journal Globalisation, Societies and Education.
In centring the perspectives of affected communities, the special issue starts from several assumptions. First, all societies are, to varying degrees, affected by different forms of conflict; second, the institution of the university is a highly distinctive and politically vital space in society for the contestation of differing ideas, positions and interests; and third, supporting and learning from universities in times of conflict is part of an ethics of responsibility within the international academy that has relevance for all contexts of higher education.
Across 24 papers in the special issue, four central themes emerged to advance understanding of the university’s social and political significance, its struggles in times of conflict and the possibilities of recovery:
• Repression, persecution and local or transnational solidarities in higher education;
• Universities as spaces of resilience and resistance;
• The politics of international aid and knowledge production in the field of higher education and conflict; and
• Universities, post-conflict recovery and peace-building.
The papers cover topics such as destruction of universities during violent conflict; student protests and repression; authoritarianism and attacks on academic freedom; higher education during displacement and exile; external support for higher education in conflict settings; and universities, peace-building and restorative justice, to mention a few.
Across diverse settings such as Afghanistan, Ukraine, Colombia, Mexico, India, South Africa, Palestine, Syria, Rojava, Turkey and the United States, the authors highlight new theoretical and empirical insights about the social, political and epistemic significance of the university space in times of conflict.
There is much to learn
At a moment of intensifying political and economic crises for higher education across the globe, the experiences of universities in times of conflict powerfully illuminate the immense challenges facing the sector.
These include questions of institutional autonomy and academic freedom; encroachments by the state and the market in an age of disaster capitalism; old and new forms of colonisation and coloniality in higher education; and the inherently contradictory roles of universities in both reproducing and potentially transforming relations of power and injustice.
Research on universities in times of conflict is not only about exceptional circumstances for higher education but has urgent broader relevance for the times we are in. Learning from universities that have experienced different forms of conflict can powerfully illuminate the challenges facing higher education in increasingly polarised, unequal, authoritarian and anti- democratic contexts across the globe.
The question is no longer whether universities and academic communities are relevant in times of conflict and post-conflict recovery but, given their centrality, how they can be protected and supported. Further, why has higher education itself become such a central terrain of both repression and resistance in these troubling times?
There is much to learn from – and with – academic colleagues who have lived through violent conflict and authoritarianism, as these phenomena expand worldwide. The imperative extends beyond the prevailing logics of human capital and securitisation to defending core principles and values of higher education, linked to wider struggles of knowledge-making, self-determination, liberation, freedom and democracy.
The papers in our special issue are evidence that even in the darkest moments, there is light, resistance and hope – and a refusal to be silent in the face of injustice.
written by Savo Heleta, Helen Murray, Birgul Kutan, Samia Al-Botmeh, Sardar Saadi and Mario Novelli
Savo Heleta is a research associate at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa; Helen Murray is a lecturer in education policy in the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London, UK; Birgul Kutan is a lecturer at the Centre for International Education at the University of Sussex, UK; Samia Al-Botmeh is an assistant professor in economics in the faculty of business and economics at Birzeit University, Palestine; Sardar Saadi is the former co-director of the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Rojava, Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria; Mario Novelli is a professor in the political economy of education at the University of Sussex, UK, and a visiting professor with the NRF SARChI Chair in Community, Adult and Workers’ Education, University of Johannesburg, South Africa.
This article is based on a recent paper published in the journal Globalisation, Societies and Education titled “Supporting and learning from universities in times of conflict: Towards resilience and resistance in higher education”. The full special issue on universities in times of conflict can be accessed here.
Quelle: University World News
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