Researching Postcolonial Hierarchies in Conflictive Times. Entanglements, Power Hierarchies and Academic Integrity in German Institutions

The research network Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict will hold its first Think Lab of the second funding phase on 20 May 2026, hosted by the Centre for Conflict Studies Marburg. The second phase is dedicated to strengthening the network´s focus on global entanglements, which will also frame the discussions of the event.

 

Since October 7, Gaza has become a prism through which wider struggles over academic freedom, public responsibility, and the authority to name violence come into view. In Germany especially, it has also become a catalyst for interventions into university autonomy: tighter controls over language, events, protest, and public positioning are redrawing the boundaries of permissible scholarship. What begins with Israel/Palestine will not remain confined to this field, however. The tightening of academic spaces visible around Gaza is poised to affect other politically contested areas of research as well.

This talk examines these ripple effects, illustrating how a conjuncture of semantic policing, institutional risk aversion, and mounting pressure to signal political loyalty have weakened the capacity of universities to sustain critical debate. The issue of conducting postcolonial and critical research in a political context marked by entangled global power hierarchies, the rise of fascism, restrictions of academic freedom, and (self)censorship on the topic of genocide will be addressed. Against this backdrop, contradictions both apparent and inherent appear within academic institutions, resulting in the reproduction of the very same violent logics and structures we are researching about and against through our studies. While postcolonial and feminist perspectives question the division between academia and activism, calling for injustices to be explicitly named, the restriction of academic freedom in Germany in particular makes these practices a hurdle for academic integrity and careers. How can we reconcile what we learn and embrace theoretically with the current political developments that affect us as researchers? Who can and wants to work on the topic of peace, conflict and postcolonialism under these restrictions on academic freedom, but also who can (safely) speak up and resist them? How can we maintain our academic integrity and avoid contributing to the reproduction of racism and violence despite our entanglements in German academia?

In the Virtual ThinkLab we will discuss these questions based on an input by Dr. Jannis Julien Grimm, an interdisciplinary conflict researcher and director of the research unit “Radical Spaces” at the Center for Interdisciplinary Peace and Conflict Research at Freie Universität Berlin on the topic of “Trial by Fire – Gaza as a Stress Test for Academic Integrity”. He holds a PhD in political science from the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies on the interrelation between social mobilisation, political violence, and state repression. His current work explores the contested meanings of civil disobedience and (non)violent resistance in Sudan, Lebanon, and Palestine, and the conditions of transnational solidarity in the context of mass violence.

 

The following paper will be read in preparation for the session:

Grimm, J. J., & Mauthofer, L. (2025). Multi-Perspectivity & Ethical Representation in the Context of Gaza & October 7: Addressing the Semantic Void. Daedalus, 154(2), 169–188. https://doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_02146