Event — Panel

Academic Freedom Space - panel discussions

The Academic Freedom Space (AFS) is a platform that seeks to create spaces in which to formulate theory and action in response to infringements on intellectual and academic expression.

From 25 to 28 August, there are five online sessions to choose from, featuring invited speakers from or on different regions who will share their views and experiences to spark open audience discussions. 

The AFS sessions are organised during ICAS 12, but participation is open to anyone who is interested.

The Academic Freedom Space was first organised during ICAS11 (Leiden) as an initiative of concerned research fellows at IIAS and with the support of IIAS. Just as with ICAS11, this year’s ICAS12 Academic Freedom Space will be again open to all who are interested.

The daily sessions (described below) will feature invited speakers from or on different regions who will share their views and experiences to spark open audience discussions across transregional contexts. After an introduction explaining the history and intent of the AFS, we will anchor each of the four panel discussions to one of the themes below, although debate need not be limited to these. 

We also aim to foster broader debates about: what is an intellectual space/university; ways that academic freedom is already constricted in existing institutions; and how we can create spaces for free academic and intellectual exchanges. The concluding session will seek practical and transferable ways for defending and extending academic freedom.

It is possible to register for each session separately.
Please note that registration is only required for those not participating in ICAS12; ICAS participants do not need to register separately for AFS sessions. 

Programme

25 August
22:00 – 22:45 p.m. Japan time (15:00-15:45 p.m. CEST)
Introduction
22:45 – 23:45 p.m. Japan time (15:45-16:45 p.m. CEST)
Session 1 - State repression of freedom of thought 

26 August 2021
21:00-22:00 p.m. Japan time (14:00-15:00 CEST)
Session 2 - The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on academic freedom

27 August 2021
21:00-22:00 p.m. Japan time; (14:00-15:00 p.m. CEST)
Session 3 - Implications of neoliberal-inspired policies for knowledge creation and education

28 August
16:00-17:00 p.m. Japan time (09:00-10:00 a.m. CEST)
Session 4 - The snowballing of precarities

28 August
17:15-18:15 p.m. Japan time (10:15-11:15 a.m. CEST)
Closing session


The sessions

25 August

22:00 – 22:45 p.m. Japan time (15:00-15:45 p.m. CEST)
Introduction to the history and intent of the Academic Freedom Place

Speakers: Naomi Standen, Carmel Christy


22:45 – 23:45 p.m. Japan time (15:45-16:45 p.m. CEST)
Session 1 - State repression of freedom of thought 

As efforts by state governments to control and often repress intellectuals seem to be increasing everywhere in the world, this panel will focus on the meaning and exercise of academic freedom in state contexts. Curtailment of free thought across the world ranges from direct forms of repression such as imprisonment of intellectuals, to implicit forms like controlling historical interpretations and preferentially funding research directed at state interests. The interference of the state in knowledge production is accentuated by relations of power based on gender, sexuality, religion, race, class, ethnicity, caste and so on. The rise of populist narratives at the expense of critical research is also used by states to curb academic freedom. In this panel, we will collectively think about ways to respond to these concerns.

Speakers
Meena Kandasamy, Tharaphi Than, Courtney Campbell, Gustavo Mesquita, Aysuda Kölemen

Moderators
Simanti Dasgupta ,Carmel Christy
 

26 August 2021 - 21:00-22:00 p.m. Japan time; 14:00-15:00 CEST
Session 2 - The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on academic freedom

The global pandemic has amplified many preexisting threats to academic freedom. Institutions have cited reduced funds as they fired already precarious academics and those from underrepresented groups, and are now closing departments. Academics remaining have seen already excessive workloads escalate. There is concern that online teaching materials could replace onsite classes, and that powerful interests can condition access to online scholarly events. Research and independent reflection have been further sidelined. If the pandemic has demanded admirably swift responses from the lab sciences to understand the virus and produce vaccines, these successes also buttress the expectation that research in all areas should be focused on finding solutions to immediate ‘real-world‘ problems. In this panel, we focus on the questions: What should research be for? How can scholars defend and maintain a plurality of approaches to what research is? How can scholars continue to engage with one another, especially when they originate from different backgrounds and geographies, beyond online ‘screening’? What other less overt effects has Covid-19 had on the possibilities for academic freedom?

Speakers
Ruth Mostern, Alice Tilche, Edem Roberta Abbeyquaye, David Harvie

Moderators
Naomi Standen, Britta Ohm

27 August 2021 - 21:00-22:00 p.m. Japan time; 14:00-15:00 p.m. CEST
Session 3 - Implications of neoliberal-inspired policies for knowledge creation and education

Unfettered capitalism has reached the academy, bringing creeping privatisation and the rising influence of major donors, and opening the door to quests for ‘financial surplus’, ‘market share’, ‘customer satisfaction’, ‘driving down costs’, and ‘internationalisation’. The consequences for working conditions - including impossible workloads, unreasonable expectations, ever more precarity, individualising of resulting health issues, and yet more damage to groups already suffering discrimination - destabilise the foundations for academic freedom in numerous ways. How are these issues working out in different institutions and different world regions? What responses may help to defend academic freedom from the primacy of the profit motive?

Speakers: Yvette Taylor, Benji Chang, Liz Morrish, Ivan Franceschini

Moderators: Ting-Fai Yu, Naomi Standen

28 August - 16:00-17:00 p.m. Japan time; 09:00-10:00 a.m. CEST
Session 4 - The snowballing of precarities

Along with the concentration of resources and power, precarity has become one of the key features of the late neoliberal economy. In the academic realm, we see increasingly insecure financial and work relations for a large majority of scholars vis-à-vis a decreasing number of tenured faculty. This insecurity translates into direct dependencies on academic seniors and funders and into vulnerability towards arbitrary, often illegal behaviour, reaching from bullying and denigration to abusive treatment and sexual harassment. This panel wants to discuss the precarities that have evolved in different academic settings and look at ways to publicise, oppose and change these conditions and effects.

Speakers: Mariya Ivancheva, Asli Telli, Smaran Dayal

Moderators: Britta Ohm, Ting-Fai Yu

28 August - 17:15-18:15 p.m. Japan time, 10:15-11:15 a.m. CEST
Closing Session

Speakers: Britta Ohm, Ting-Fai Yu, Philippe Peycam, Marina Svensson

Moderator: Naomi Standen

Registration for non-participants in ICAS 12

It is possible to register for each session separately, via https://forms.iias.asia/AFS

Please note that registration is only required for those not participating in ICAS12; ICAS participants do not need to register separately for AFS sessions.