Witnessing silence: the Palestinian genocide, institutional complicity, and the politics of knowledge
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This paper examines the complicity of academic institutions in the ongoing Palestinian genocide, arguing that silence actively sustains settler colonialism, erases Palestinian narratives, and inflicts psychological harm. Drawing on Galtung’s structural violence and Butler’s concept of grievable lives, it critiques the selective engagement of universities with geopolitical crises, exposing colonial hierarchies. Using autoethnography as a decolonial method, it foregrounds lived experiences of institutional repression and censorship. It calls for the social sciences to reject performative inclusivity, explicitly condemn Israeli apartheid, support Palestinian scholarship, and hold institutions accountable to their professed commitments to equity and justice.
Author: Aneeza Pervez
Institution: University of Nottingham
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4411184381