Networks of securitisation in the academy: the role of friendship, solidarity and radical geographies

This intervention has three aims: (1) to consider how solidarities are being policed in the academy; (2) how friendships and solidarities emerge in practices of resistance; and (3) what a radical geography which embraces a decolonial pedagogy can offer us in these unsettling times. While solidarity with the Palestinian cause is transnational, it is also heavily policed and disciplined by our academic institutions. Although universities are heavily influenced by neoliberalism that prioritises profit over people, I examine how these activist spaces allow for the organic development of solidarity and friendship, which is fundamental to these movements, both in the USA and the UK. As universities increasingly embrace national security discourses and policies, such as the deployment of counter‐extremism measures in UK universities, activism is being pushed outside of our institutions. Through a call for the recognition of radical geography which embraces a decolonial framework, this intervention highlights the need for the discipline to re‐imagine how knowledge can be produced outside the narrow parameters of the institution, while centring and nurturing dynamics of friendship and care.