Short Abstract:

In the wake of what has largely come to be recognised as a genocide of the Palestinian people, we ask what anthropologists can do to uphold the dignity and worth of every life, in Palestine/Israel, Lebanon, Germany and beyond. What is our responsibility and how do we live up to it?

Long Abstract:

In November 2023 the DGSKA published a statement condemning the attack of 7 October on Israel by Hamas and other armed groups, as well as the war waged on Gaza by the Israeli state. It was one of the few German disciplinary associations to also acknowledge the violence inflicted upon Gaza's population, one month into what the ICJ determined to be plausibly amounting to genocide. More recently, the UN Special Committee to investigate Israeli practices found Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza consistent with genocide. Against this, students around the world have been protesting and have often been faced with repression and police brutality. Scholars speaking out in their support and in support of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination have been silenced. German campuses have become particularly hostile environments for anti-war protests. Nonetheless, scholars and students have been forging new alliances and opening up discursive spaces. In this roundtable we want to look back at the years since the DGSKA statement was published and ask what anthropologists have been doing and what more we can do to uphold the dignity and worth of every life, in Palestine/Israel, Lebanon, Germany and beyond. What is our responsibility and how do we live up to it in the face of repression and censorship? We ask this as anthropologists who are part of a global scientific community, as members of the universities and other research institutions we work at, and as people living and working in countries that are complicit in the atrocities committed against Palestinians.

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