{"id":17214,"date":"2026-07-15T11:52:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/offuniversity.org\/?p=17214"},"modified":"2026-10-15T13:32:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T13:32:40","slug":"caring-for-knowledge-during-authoritarianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/offuniversity.org\/de\/caring-for-knowledge-during-authoritarianism\/","title":{"rendered":"Caring for Knowledge During Authoritarianism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Caring for Knowledge During Authoritarianism<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

A gathering of 40 self-organizations of scholars at risk, self-governing and para-academic universities<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n
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<\/path><\/svg><\/span>21-22 November 2026<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

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<\/path><\/svg><\/span>Majal Collective<\/a><\/strong>
<\/strong>Sonnenallee 127, 12059 Berlin<\/span><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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For quite some time we have been experiencing a breakdown of knowledge infrastructures across countries and disciplines. Academia is under threat; it’s not a matter of individual countries, and it is taking place in what have been and still are considered strong democracies with strong institutions and rule of law.
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Built in response to different crises, the institutions we represent provide answers to this breakdown by organising the distribution of knowledge and supporting marginalised knowledge outside of the university, while maintaining close connections to it. The gathering starts from the assumption that new forms of academic life are already being created in dispersed and often fragile ways. It aims to bring together self-governing universities of displaced and persecuted scholars and para-academic initiatives in order to strengthen these emerging practices of knowledge-making and sharing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are grateful for the financial support by Zeit Stiftung Bucerius<\/a><\/strong> and Eastern Academic Alliance<\/a><\/strong> which allows us to come together.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/section><\/div>\n\n\n

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The gathering is conceived as a working space for exchange and development of shared perspectives and actions.
Together we will tackle three topics and their key questions:<\/h4>\n\n\n
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Knowledge at Risk<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

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Losing its authority over the production of truth, the university as an institution is in a deep crisis. Worldwide authoritarianism fiercely fights evidence-based knowledge and knowledge workers, targeting especially the social sciences and the humanities by either labelling whole disciplines and departments as dangerous\/radical\/un-national\/woke or as without value and unnecessary. As research and knowledge creation on climate change, gender, colonialism, migration, peace and conflict are suppressed further and as even some parts of medical research become marginalized, scholars working in these areas are at risk, persecuted and displaced. In their new, often temporary, academic homes, they are frequently not perceived as full members of the academic community. Often scholars at risk are seen as providing field access to regions that are otherwise no longer open to academia but not taken seriously as real knowledge workers in their own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We aim to tackle the following questions and others:.<\/p>\n\n\n\n