From Resistance to Resilience: The Roots of Protecting Academia at Risk

In this episode of the Protecting Academia at Risk podcast, we speak with Volha Davydzik, a Belarusian researcher working at the intersection of social and political philosophy, feminist theory, and protest studies.

Drawing on her experiences across Belarus, China, and Germany, Volha reflects on academic displacement, mobility, care, solidarity, and the challenges of rebuilding an academic life in exile. The conversation explores the hidden labour of migration, the tensions between academic mobility and personal stability, and the ways in which gender and caregiving shape academic careers.

The discussion also delves into Volha’s research on the 2020 Belarusian protest movement, examining infrastructures of care and solidarity, affective politics, protest art, and forms of collective resistance under authoritarianism. Together, we reflect on how care can function not only as a response to violence, but also as a political practice capable of sustaining collective life and imagining alternative futures.

Volha Davydzik is a Belarusian researcher working in the fields of social and political philosophy, feminist theory, and protest studies. Her research focuses on the 2020 Belarusian protest movement, infrastructures of solidarity and care, affective politics, and forms of collective resistance under authoritarianism.

Recent work:

Davydzik, Volha. (2026). Choreography of Spaces and Bodies During Social Rebellion: the Case of the Belarusian Revolution. Journal of Belarusian Studies. https://doi.org/10.30965/20526512-12350039

DAVYDZIK, Volia (2025) FROM UTOPIA TO VULNERABILITY: THE FEMALE BODY IN BELARUSIAN ART OF THE 20TH-21ST CENTURIES. URL: https://chrysalismag.org/project/female-body-in-belarusian-art

DAVYDZIK, Volha. (2025). CYBERFEMINISM AND THE BELARUSIAN UPRISING: DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURES, AFFECTIVE SOLIDARITY, AND POLITICAL IMAGINATION. Topos, (1), 226-243. https://journals.ehu.lt/index.php/topos/article/view/1486/1195

DAVYDZIK, Volha, STEBUR Antonina. (2024) INVISIBLE NETWORKS: TECHNOLOGY’S DUAL ROLE IN CARE AND POLITICS IN BELARUS// https://jordanrussiacenter.org/blog/invisible-networks-technologys-dual-role-in-care-and-politics-in-belarus.

DAVYDZIK, Volha, STEBUR Antonina. (2023) FEATURES AND EFFECTS OF THE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN THE BELARUSIAN PROTEST, Digital Icons, (22), 23-44.

In this episode of Protecting Academia at Risk, Elena Trifan speaks with researcher Venera Régent, WPZ Research, about universities living through war, armed conflict, and systemic crisis.

The conversation explores the Erasmus+-funded project CLOUD HED - Disaster Resilience in the Higher Education Sector via a Cloud University Model, which investigates how higher education institutions adapt under conditions of disruption and uncertainty. Together, they discuss academic resilience, digital infrastructures, institutional survival, well-being, and the human relationships that sustain academic life in times of crisis.

The episode also discusses the forthcoming volume Higher Education in Times of War and Crisis: Institutional Resilience, Responses, and Preparedness in Contexts of Armed Conflict and Systemic Disruption, expected to be published by Brill in late 2026.

Listen to the Protecting Academia at Risk podcast series via the CEU Podcast Library:https://podcasts.ceu.edu/series/protecting-academia-risk-towards-new-policy-agenda-thriving-culture-higher-education-europe

Follow Protecting Academia at Risk on Facebook and LinkedIn for future episodes and updates.

The volume in press, Higher Education in Times of War and Crisis: Institutional Resilience, Responses, and Preparedness in Contexts of Armed Conflict and Systemic Disruption, explores how higher education systems respond to extreme disruption caused by war, displacement, destruction, and political instability. Through case studies ranging from Ukraine and Israel to World War II, the former Yugoslavia, and the anticipatory cases of Poland, and Latvia, the book examines institutional resilience, crisis preparedness, and continuity strategies in higher education.

The volume is a deliverable of the Erasmus+-funded project Disaster Resilience in Higher Education Systems via a Cloud University Model, which investigates emergency-driven digital transformation in higher education and the conditions for resilient, crisis-sensitive teaching and learning in virtual environments. More information on the project can be found at https://www.cloud-hed.eu/ or via https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/cloud-hed/posts/?feedView=all .

What happens when academic freedom stops being a principle and becomes a daily negotiation?

In recent years, discussions about academic freedom have expanded rapidly. And yet, many scholars, especially those early in their careers, continue to navigate increasing pressure without clear tools, support structures, or even a shared language to describe what is happening to them.

This episode brings together Andrea Peto (CEU) and Benoît Josset (Rennes University), contributors to a Pocket Guide for Academics at Risk, developed within OPEN COST Action project mapping attacks on higher education across multiple national contexts - along with support from Democratization at stake? Comparing Anti-Gender Politics in CEE and NME countries (Antigender-Politics) COST Action.

The Pocket Guide comes with an thourhouly thought out platform offering different solutions and support: https://academicresilience.eu/

Drawing on empirical research and lived experience, the conversation moves beyond abstract debates to focus on practice:

• How do attacks on academic freedom actually unfold?
• What are the warning signs, before they become obvious?
• Why is self-censorship one of the most pervasive and least recognized forms of pressure?
• And what can academics realistically do when institutions fail to protect them?

The episode also addresses questions that are often ignored in formal discussions: digital security, mental health, and the material conditions of academic work under increasing political and economic constraints.

Rather than offering a checklist or easy solutions, the pocket guide, and this conversation, insist on something more uncomfortable but more useful: awareness, preparation, and collective thinking.

Because the most dangerous assumption remains the same across contexts: that it cannot happen here.

Produced as part of Protecting Academia at Risk project, with support from the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

In this episode, Nadyia Kiss, Tania Arcimovich and Elena Trifan join for an intimate conversation about the emotional side of studying scholars at risk. Instead of focusing on results or policy, they reflect on what it felt like to work in the field: the moments of injustice, helplessness, solidarity, and unexpected hope that shaped their research.

The discussion moves from personal biographies to methodological choices, and from the frustrations of bureaucratic systems to the therapeutic aspects of listening to displaced scholars’ stories. The researchers talk openly about positionality, trust, privilege, and the blurred boundaries between academic work, activism, and care. What began as a research project gradually became a shared space of reflection that challenged their assumptions about academia, expanded their intellectual paths, and strengthened their commitment to solidarity and public engagement.

At the center of the conversation is a simple but powerful idea: that research on displacement is not only about documenting risk, but also about creating spaces for hope, trust, and collective meaning.

This episode is a bit more different then our last ones, we get to travel a bit in time. Back in April, we hosted a live conversation on academic freedom, what it means, why it’s under attack, and how scholars navigate increasing political and institutional pressures. Revisiting it today reveals just how much the landscape has continued to deteriorate. With Alina Dragolea as host and contributions from Andrea Pető, Dina Gusejnova, Bernard Kleeberg, and Nadiya Kiss, we present here the Q&A section of the panel. Drawing on experiences from the US, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Russia, and beyond, the conversation explores how neoliberal governance, authoritarian politics, and market-driven university reforms erode critical knowledge, solidarity, and the public role of higher education. The discussion addresses self-censorship, resistance strategies, gender studies under attack, and the unequal burdens placed on students and academics.

Produced as part of Protecting Academia at Risk project, with support from the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

In this episode of Protecting Academia at Risk, we look at what happens when the boundaries between science, politics, and ideology are deliberately blurred and who benefits from that blurring.

Featuring Andrea Pető, Dina Gusejnova, Nadia Kiss, Bernhard Kleeberg, Alina Drăgolea, and Elena Trifan, the conversation moves from the attacks on gender studies to the deeper structural mechanisms that allow entire fields to be silenced, renamed, defunded, or quietly erased.

We discuss how academic freedom is weaponized, how objectivity is hijacked, and why pretending to be “apolitical” has become its own political stance. From Hungary to Romania, Berkeley to Kyiv, we trace the multiple ways academic work can disappear and the small, powerful strategies of resistance that allow it to survive.

We also talk about, off-campus dissent, the role of social media for scholars, and the visibility strategies Ukrainian researchers have developed under war and displacement. It’s an episode about activism inside academia, the politics of knowledge, and the micro-gestures that keep critical scholarship alive.

If you want to hear more about these themes, listen to our podcast series “Protecting Academia at Risk”. Episodes available here, on Substack and Apple Play

In this episode, we have a special guest Professor Achim Kemmerling and we talk about what it means to protect knowledge when mobility is not an option.

Professor Achim Kemmerling leads Research-at-Risk, an initiative at the Brandt School that reimagines how universities in safer contexts can support scholars working under authoritarian regimes or in resource-poor environments. From Myanmar to Afghanistan, his work traces the fragile infrastructures that sustain teaching and research under threat and often outside official recognition or accreditation.

We discuss why most existing programs remain trapped in the language of excellence, why mobility has become a default but insufficient response, and what solidarity looks like when it is built from below. You can find more about this iniative on this link: Scholars at risk

It’s a conversation about bureaucracy and hope, about academic freedom that survives not through exile alone but through connection, care, and persistence.

Follow us on social media:

• Facebook 
• LinkedIn
• Substack

Wars don’t just destroy institutions, they reconfigure what counts as knowledge. In this episode, Elena Trifan speaks with Nadiya Kiss, Dina Gusejnova, and Andrea Pető about how the war in Ukraine has transformed academic hierarchies, disciplines, and solidarities across Europe.

From the sudden visibility of Ukrainian studies to the rise of securitized and market-driven universities, Epistemic Frontlines explores how conflict reshapes the very conditions of knowing.

In this episode of Protecting Academia at Risk, we ask a pressing question: why don’t we seem to learn from the past? The host is Elena Trifan and together with Andrea Pető, Dina Gusejnova, Nadiya Kiss, Bernhard Kleeberg and Alina Dragolea, we explore how anti-gender discourses became state policies, why mistrust and crises undermine our ability to recognize patterns, how hubris and neoliberal reforms left academia vulnerable, and what it means to fight for decolonization in the middle of war. We end by looking at how anti-liberal forces are not only dismantling, but also building parallel institutions making higher education a key battleground for the future.

This episode of Protecting Academia at Risk marks the beginning of a new series that examines how the global landscape of higher education and academic freedom has shifted since our previous recordings. The discussion engages with the implications of Trump’s Project 2025, the growing politicization of knowledge production, and the emergence of new geographies of risk — including within the United States itself. Panelists reflect on how institutions and individuals navigate these pressures, the challenges of safeguarding academic freedom, and the broader question of what it means for academia to thrive under conditions of uncertainty.