INTERACT conversations #15

Freie Universität Berlin, INTERACT Center, Altensteinstraße 48, 14195 Berlin, 15 April 2026, 14:00

Debating settler colonialism, imperial warfare, and resistance
A conversation with Anna-Esther Younes

As part of the INTERACT Conversation Series, this 15th installment brings together critical perspectives on settler colonialism, imperial warfare, and practices of resistance. In an increasingly polarized political climate, debates around these concepts have moved beyond academic inquiry and into the center of public contestation. This event creates a space to engage these debates rigorously, situating contemporary conflicts within longer histories of colonial domination and anti-colonial struggle.

Together with Dr. Anna-Esther Younes, we will explore how narratives of security, legitimacy, and violence are constructed and contested, and what it means to analyze resistance in contexts marked by asymmetrical power relations. The conversation invites participants to reflect on the analytical, political, and ethical stakes of engaging with these frameworks today.

The event will be held in English and moderated by Dr, Jannis Julien Grimm, head of the Research Group “Radical Spaces” at the INTERACT Center. It is specifically directed at students and colleagues of Freie Universität Berlin.

About the speaker: Anna-Esther Younes (she/her) is an independent scholar working on settler colonial and colonial studies, Race Critical Theories, and psychoanalysis in Europe and the Dutch Caribbean. Her PhD examined what she conceptualizes as the “War on Antisemitism,” which she situates as a form of counterinsurgency in the lineage of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. She is the recipient of the Emma Goldman Award for her contributions to feminist and social justice scholarship in Europe.

Beyond academia, Younes has curated Palestinian art and written extensively on anti-Palestinian repression in Germany. She co-authored an award-winning documentary on war journalism, served as a lay judge at Berlin’s Juvenile Court, and developed a YouTube series on “Decolonizing the Development and Humanitarian Sector.” Her work is guided by the concepts of “researching home” and “researching up to power.” She also founded and organized the Colloquium of Color in Berlin. Her academic, journalistic, and policy work is available via: https://annaestheryounes.net/