Silence, Surveillance, Solidarity – Palestinian Academics as Space Invaders in Western Academia

This panel brings together scholar Hanna Al-Taher and activist Carolin Vargas to explore the entangled dynamics of erasure, surveillance, and resistance that shape the position of Palestinian academics and voices in solidarity with Palestine in Western institutions of higher education. Despite their emancipatory self-image, Western universities largely remain embedded in colonial and imperial legacies that structurally marginalize Palestinian epistemologies. On the one hand, academia systematically excludes and marginalizes Palestinian intellectuals. On the other hand, the incorporation of Palestinian scholars, too, often serves to obscure deeper forms of epistemic violence, especially when knowledge about Palestine challenges dominant geopolitical alignments. Can the university be a site for anticolonial struggle, or does it remain complicit in the reproduction of imperial power?

Together, the panelists explore what it means to be a “space invader” in institutions that surveil, police, and sometimes weaponize academic freedom. They discuss the connections between the suppression of Palestinian knowledge production, the broader scholasticide in Gaza, and the role of Western universities—particularly in Germany—in legitimizing occupation through epistemic control. What forms of solidarity, resistance, and radical imagination are possible under such conditions?

Hanna Al-Taher, as a scholar working at the intersection of anticolonial and queer Marxist theory, critically examines the structural contributions of education systems in colonial and imperial projects. Linking the erasure of Palestinians in academic discourse to the ongoing violence of colonialism in Palestine, she questions the assumption that the university can serve as a space for anticolonial theorizing. AlTaher conceptualizes the presence of Palestinian scholars as “space invaders”, whose intellectual and physical mobility remains policed by imperial ad institutional norms and borders.

Carolin Vargas, a Marxist student activist and member of the BIPoC Referat of the AStA at Freie Universität Berlin, draws on her extensive experience with organizing public events and solidarity initiatives on and off campus. As part of her involvement in building Palestine solidarity groups at the university, her work has repeatedly encountered institutional restrictions, silencing, and repression—illustrating how German academia reproduces broader patterns of securitization when it comes to Palestine. Grounded in a critical approach to knowledge production and counter-hegemonic scholarship, Vargas situates her work within a broader movement to challenge the role of academia within the imperial state and to open space for intersectional and transnational forms of solidarity.

The panel is moderated by Dr. Jannis Julien Grimm, head of the research unit “Radical Spaces” at the INTERACT Center for Interdisciplinary Peace and Conflict Research at Freie Universität Berlin.

Date: 16 July 2025

Time: 18:00

Location: Thielallee 67, Freie Universität Berlin

No prior registration required.