Lessons on Repression from Turkish Universities: Politics of Repression – Strategies and Resistances in Scholarship

Over the past years we have been witnessing increased repression towards academics and scientific research in various countries. Scholars are attacked for their critical research and teachings, and for voicing it in public. They are dismissed, imprisoned, their institutions shut down or research impeded. These forms of repression are part of an ongoing crisis, which once again highlight the centrality of academic autonomy for democracy. They, however, also compel us to revisit the relation between academia and a democratic public in the light of its current erosion by authoritarian governments. Drawing on the findings of their recent study on academic freedom in Turkish universities, İnan Özdemir Taştan and Aydın Ördek from the School of Human Rights, Ankara/Turkey, will discuss the extent of the repression and its implications. Asking how we can grasp academic freedom in terms of rights and responsibilities for the future of democracy, they will explore lessons that can be learnt from the Turkish case contributing to a broader diagnosis of the situation of academia beyond this specific crisis.

• İnan Özdemir Taştan (Barbro Klein Fellow, SCAS, Sweden; School of Human Rights, Ankara/Turkey)
• Aydın Ördek (School of Human Rights, Ankara/Turkey)
• Chairs: Nurhak Polat and Ulrike Flader (University of Bremen)

This event is jointly organized by the International Office, the Department of Anthropology and Cultural Research, the Research Group Soft Authoritarianisms, and Worlds of Contradiction, all University of Bremen.

Link to the event