Format/Structure

We envisage this contribution as a series of two-to-four roundtable discussions depending on the submissions received

Long Abstract

In July 2025, the Union of Professors and Employees of Birzeit University issued a public statement, “Scream for Gaza – Do Not Forget the People of the Tents,” declaring:

“It is not only life in Gaza that is at stake – it is the very idea of life that is being attacked.Today it is Gaza and Palestine, tomorrow it will be everywhere.”

This roundtable takes as its starting point the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the elimination of Palestinian life throughout the fragmented geographies of Palestine as a foretell of what awaits racialised peoples globally, what the Colombian president recently warned of: “What we see in Gaza is the rehearsal of the future.” What unfolds before us exposes how violent Western empires operate against brown and racialised nations, cast as subhuman and unworthy of life. This disposability underpins and sustains a white supremacist and racial-capitalist world order, rooted in enduring colonialities. The possibility of an ecologically just and equitable future is in profound jeopardy, not least because dominant responses to crises remain tethered to capitalist logics of accumulation and extractivism - logics that perpetuate unequal and violent systems of power and hegemony. To confront the enduring legacies of colonial violence that shape our past, present, and future, we call on comrades, scholars, activists, and artists to come together to scream, rage, and mobilise against genocidal worldmaking. To guide this collective intervention, we ask:

- What is our role as critical scholar-activists and educators in times of genocide?

- How might we confront and unsettle the epistemic and ontological hegemonies embedded in our institutions, and resist the pacification and apathy of academia?

- How can we move beyond paralysis and helplessness in a world increasingly reshaped by forces that fracture our tools of survival, sumud (steadfastness), and repair?

This Roundtable has 4 pending paper proposals.
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