Higher education’s complicity in continued colonialism

[Last updated: 28 April 2024 13:55 GMT+2 to add this brilliant article exposing the settler colonial logics of Israel and its impact on the social-ecology of Palestine and her peoples]

I participated in an online webinar last week, organised by the UK Research Integrity Office, on ‘Decolonised Research Culture and Practice’. I was invited by them to share the work that some colleagues and I did during our PhDs at the University of Sheffield where we started a reading group and created a guide for PhD researchers to understand and begin to challenge coloniality in research.

I couldn’t in good conscience give a talk on (de)coloniality in research without mentioning the current devastation of the occupied Palestinian territories — all of it, not just Gaza. Not when the physical destruction of the place and the genocide of the Palestinian peoples is done within the framework of settler colonialism, not when all higher education institutes in Gaza have been intentionally targeted and destroyed (alongside at least 3 university presidents, 95 university deans and professors, and >4000 students; see this The Conversation article on scholasticide), and especially not when the technologies (weapons, surveillance, AI) used to murder and destroy are developed at universities.

From Al Jazeera

From Euro-Med Monitor

From Euro-Med Monitor

I was not paying attention to the chat during my presentation, and none of the Q&A questions fielded subsequently focused on that point, so I assumed my point went by without fanfare, though I did later receive an email from an audience member encouraging me to keep going and noting that I had ruffled some feathers. I guess we will see if UKRIO uploads the webinar recording unedited…

Given the continued bombardment and attacks across occupied Palestine, it has thus been really heartwarming/hopegiving to see the rise of student encampments at universities across the US (at least 75 and counting), peacefully but stubbornly demanding divestment from a state that is committing genocide. And in this world’s first live-streamed genocide, in which a visible response has been made after 7 months, it’s also incredible that despite repression, surveillance, violence, and general undermining of humanity, there is a conversation going between the oppressed/genocided and those fighting on their behalf against the system.

Image from Twitter/X, @yasso_m10

Nonetheless, the killings continue, strikes on a playground where children were playing table football, by quadcopter drones luring out Palestinians (who still hold on to their sense of humanity) by playing recorded sounds of crying infants and women, and of Refaat Alareer’s daughter Shymaa, her husband, and their 3-month-old baby. His famous poem, If I Must Die, was dedicated to her, and I got really upset when I saw the news of their murder. The callous and intentional targeting of poets, writers, journalists, professors, and intellectuals in general is really vicious and devastating.

If I Must Die, by Refaat Alareer. Photo from Twitter/X, @OnlinePalEng

The grandson of Palestinian professor Refaat Alareer, born and died during the current genocidal war in Gaza. May all their souls rest in peace. Photo from Twitter/X, @MABR72488482705

The most horrifying thing about this genocide is knowing that all of this killing (and social-ecological devastation of the land [see this article exposing settler colonial logics of Israel on the social ecology of Palestine and her peoples], let alone the carbon emissions) can be prevented, all of it is illegal under modern-day international law, all of it unwanted by the majority of the world’s population and we’re supposed to be living in an age of democracy, and yet it is being permitted by the USA, UK, France, Germany, and Australia. And these countries host a vast majority of higher education institutes in the world and are destinations for many international students (because they are ‘higher ranked’, because they have more resources, because they stole from the rest of the world when they were colonising/as settler colonies funded by empires).

So yes, it’s difficult to talk/think about ‘decolonising’ research, when reality shows us that coloniality and colonisation is still very much ongoing in a visceral, embodied, physical sense that has been directly enabled by these Global North universities that want to ‘decolonise research’. We will only be ‘decolonised’ and free, when all of us are free.