Amidst the ongoing horrific war in Gaza, the topic of academic freedom has emerged as a point of discussion in Sweden. Researchers and intellectuals have expressed their concerns regarding the constraints on freedom of expression and political complicity. Hundreds of students and faculty members from multiple universities have advocated for a halt to institutional collaboration with Israeli academic institutions.
The report Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Report for Swedish Universities, released in August 2024 by Workers and Students in Swedish Academia for Palestine (WASSAP), calls on Swedish universities to 1) end all formal collaborations with Israeli universities and other complicit institutions, and 2) simultaneously establish collaborations with Palestinian universities, and provide support for displaced Palestinian academics and students by offering them a place to study and work at Swedish universities. This appeal has been supported by several calls in the media from researchers at universities such as Lund, Uppsala and Gothenburg. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have also repeatedly voiced their concerns about the so-called Gaza Square in Gothenburg, which was evacuated on 21 November 2024 to make way for the Liberal party’s demonstration the following day.
At the same time, individual academics who have spoken out in the media have been accused of choosing the (wrong) side of the conflict, while others are accused of not taking sides. Anders Persson, a political scientist and Middle East expert, had his office at Linnaeus University vandalised with children’s sweaters and socks in blood-red colours, paired with an accusation of having “blood on his hands”. Jewish as well as Palestinian lecturers around the country have got used to security reinforcements and police protection during lectures and seminars.
The issue of academic freedom and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have, for various reasons, taken on a distinctly right-left character. The right has expressed concerns about what it sees as the left’s tendency to cancel ‘anything’ and ‘anyone’ it perceives as having the ‘wrong’ views, and the left accuses academic and government leaders of indifference to what Amnesty International now calls an ongoing genocide. In the academic arena, the protracted war has merged with the struggle over academic freedom and its definition. For the movement for Palestine, academic freedom is about the goal of decolonising the university and distancing itself from the Israeli universities’ involvement in occupation, settlement and, ultimately, genocide.
For me, the issue of academic freedom took an unexpected turn when I pointed out the absence of gender aspects in the actions of both sides in an article urging readers to also “mourn” (with Judith Butler’s definition) the Israeli woman lying under victorious Hamas men on a truck bed in photos from 7 October 2023. Sexual violence is not something that could be considered an anti-colonial struggle, I argued.
It was my humble opinion that there was room for such nuances elsewhere, outside of Gaza. I had no idea that my article would generate such a strong and diverse range of reactions from readers, including personal comments and threats. It was not least surprising to receive criticism from colleagues, and researchers affiliated with other universities, expressing dismay and “shock”, and even questioning my intentions at this “painful time”. I was informed that the Israeli woman’s body was already a cause of concern for “everyone”, and that there was “no evidence” of any rapes occurring on 7 October. It was suggested that my article might be seen as part of a larger media narrative that was legitimising the loss of life in Gaza.
902 words in a rather peripheral online journal was thus enough to shift the geopolitical battle to my personal and professional life, which tend to overlap for academics.
Two weeks after the article was published, I was informed by email that I would no longer be working on an assignment, which had been my responsibility for almost ten years. The email, which was received during the Easter holidays, included a form that I was supposed to complete and return, indicating my resignation. I was frankly asked to sign and return the form so that the department’s board could make a final decision.
This experience led me to reflect on two things: first, the strength of emotions evoked by a foreign policy issue in scholars who do not research the topic or have family or other ties to the region; and second, the tension between supporting academic freedom and being dismissed from an assignment after what seemed to me a rather uncontroversial analytical article.
Since then, I have been following the movement for Palestine, and particularly the issue of the 7 October sexual assaults, which many still seem to consider exaggerated or even untrue. Next, I will approach the phenomenon from a somewhat distanced sociological perspective, which may be perceived to override genuine international engagement, based on real moral outrage and sincere political standings.
From a strict sociological perspective, one might consider whether the commitment of those involved is exclusively dedicated to the cause at hand, or if it might also be influenced by domestic circumstances. In other words, is there a possibility that researchers motivated by political agendas might also have a personal stake in validating their positions within their respective fields and social classes, to use the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptualisation.
In this regard, the Struggle with a capital ‘S’ encompasses not only external events, outside our national border, but also, and perhaps more importantly, intrapersonal and interpersonal power dynamics within our own institutions, with the objective to enhance the value of the cultural and scientific capital researchers possess. It is possible that an academic who takes the ‘right’ position on the ‘right’ issue may gain both attention and recognition in relation to others in the same field.
For Bourdieu, a social field is a system of relations between specialised agents and institutions that compete for field-specific values that they regard as mutual. Within the scientific field, these relations are occupied by competing universities (and their internal hierarchies), academic journals (depending on their ranking), titles and positions (with more or less research), etc. Within the field, academics orient themselves and compete for recognition from others.
In order to participate in this complex game, institutions have a role to play by providing the necessary support for the diverse input required by these relatively autonomous fields, often in the form of a doctorate. Finding one’s place in the field is of utmost importance for researchers navigating the intricate landscape of, both written and unwritten, academic rules. However, due to the unique characteristics of each social field, it can be challenging for its members to make their value systems easily understandable to outsiders, who may not even be able to distinguish between academic titles such as lecturer and reader (and to mix up these is indeed tantamount to sacrilege as they are associated with strict hierarchies).
The most significant recognition in each field is what Bourdieu calls field-specific symbolic capital. Those who possess these valued assets and attributes enjoy a reputation and authority that, to some extent, may be akin to that of a priest preaching in a church. Symbolic capital can be considered somewhat more elusive than simply formulated merits. In fact, merits, in terms of citations and publications, and symbolic capital, do not necessarily overlap in the academic field.
University teachers acquire symbolic assets through a variety of capital within the academic world (which might not be known to outsiders, hence the autonomy). One pathway to achieving this symbolic capital might be to hold a high position within the university system, such as a professorship or deanship. Another pathway could be to have capital linked to scientific power, for example, serving as an editor for a scientific journal. Additionally, capital linked to scientific prestige might be achieved through serving on the boards of external research councils, receiving scientific awards, having your work translated into foreign languages, delivering keynote speeches at international conferences, or having a large number of citations; capital linked to intellectual reputation – like appearances in the media, writing for prestigious journals, having books published in paperback, or sitting on the editorial boards of intellectual journals; and capital linked to political and economic power, such as designing a literary canon or being in charge of a government assignment, or for that matter having a chair in the French or Swedish Academies.
If we consider social science and humanities as a relatively autonomous scientific field in which researchers, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students, orientate themselves and compete for recognition, we become aware of the kinds of values to which those acting in the field relate to. Bourdieu, who came from a farming family in rural France, recognised early on that international publications in the Web of Science were not the only path to achieving status. He also recognised the importance of being visible in non-academic media and, in some sub-fields, of claiming moral validity, which might be decisive for the researcher’s recognition within and outside the scientific community.
From a Bourdieusian perspective, who is the target of the struggle of the politically engaged researcher? Is this struggle related to the subaltern actors that the elevated academics – those whom Thomas Piketty has coined the ‘Brahmin Left’ – say they are fighting for? Not necessarily. The main battle takes place within the dominant class and between the cultural and economic factions, concerning the value of cultural capital vs. economic capital.
According to Bourdieu, the two most extreme groups in this dominant class are university professors (preferably at the old universities) and the leaders of large companies. It is between these groups that the battle of the value of cultural and economic capital recurs – albeit indirectly – as a horizontal axis in social space. This struggle concerns the value of one capital in relation to the other. For the affluent Wallenberg family, it may be important to appropriate some cultural capital, while for the scientific field, it is a matter of increasing the value of the cultural capital they have worked so hard to achieve, relative to the economic capital, so that the value between the two nears 1-1, rather than 1-3.
It is noteworthy that this level of unified, long-term international opposition has been unparalleled since the mass protests against the Vietnam War (though the protests against the Iraq War did occur, they were widespread but short-lived). This is significant, as it underscores the importance of the moral legitimacy of symbolic capital in shaping the vibrant movement for Palestine, influenced by both national and international university dynamics.
If there is a centre of power in the humanities and social sciences it is probably located close to Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Internationally renowned scholars from these universities can be viewed as major agents of the ‘intellectual field’. These academics are elevated to the status of writers and great thinkers, and the fact that the battle line has its epicentre in US academia further adds fuel to the academic and intellectual field.
It is noteworthy that prominent political academics, such as Angela Davis, Judith Butler, Nancy Fraser and Cornell West (who initiated the Justice for All party in the 2024 elections), have expressed strong support for Palestine, despite – or perhaps because of – their position at the heart of the imperialism that anti-imperialists seek to challenge. The proximity to the already established US scholars is significant, as it can potentially extend a form of legitimacy to more peripheral actors in Sweden and other European countries.
Political researchers who aspire to have a share of the highly sought-after symbolic capital might benefit from aligning themselves with the dominant thinkers in the field. This practice can be conceptualised through the concept of subject-related opinion-positions, which suggests that opinions are formed in relation to other people rather than the subject matter itself. In order to ‘think right’, one should make sure to align oneself with the opinion expressed by the powerful people in the field, not only to ‘think alike’, but as a way of strengthening one’s own position through proximity to these important agents. In other words, it is the relationship with other subjects that determines which views one should adopt – even if one often claims to speak on behalf of a subordinate position of resistance.
In this navigational context, it is prudent to monitor the views of prominent professors and align oneself with them, adopting the same opinion as the professor with significant symbolic capital. Subject-related opinion-positions are thus a two-way action, where the professor with recognised symbolic capital can influence others who share the same view, while at the same time, strengthening their own position. This underscores the significance of the ongoing battle for the consensual ‘right’ view.
Given its imperialist history and contemporary agenda, along with its support for Israel, one might think that it would be necessary to distance oneself from the US. However, it is important to note that the centre for critique and symbolic capital often find themselves drawn to the same place. This means that, in a sense, it is necessary to be near the field of power while at the same time standing in opposition to it, in a kind of re-centring of symbolic power, with a force that Bourdieu would liken to a magnetic field. This contradictory logic of gravity means that a person who, for example, expresses sharp criticism of the US as “satanic murderers” (to paraphrase Swedish prime minister Olof Palme) on social media one week, may well attend a conference in California the following week, without losing their air of radicalism.
While it is important to draw upon the insights of renowned figures such as Judith Butler and Angela Davis, the selection of actors and subjects within one’s own country might be even more significant, given the smaller and more specialised field. Sharing an opinion with the ‘right’ researcher (while distancing oneself from the ‘wrong’ researcher) is a more immediate and precise path to position oneself in relation to the symbolic power in one’s own field (with hopes of future favours through acquired social capital). All American scholars do not necessarily have the same value for other Swedish researchers, even in the same discipline. Nor are they necessarily of much help for future working life in Sweden.
Symbolic assets are particularly important for younger researchers. Students and doctoral candidates who are aspiring to a future academic career, but who are still developing their legitimacy as researchers, may benefit from being mindful of how they navigate this complex world. It could be advantageous for them to align themselves closely with established figures in the field, thereby avoiding the need for more time-consuming investments such as publishing articles in highly ranked journals (a practice that is increasingly influenced by other values such as networking) or obtaining external research funding. The most accessible route to the centre of the magnetic field is, of course, kinship or intimate relationships, which obviously abound in academia.
Tensions between university colleagues have become increasingly explosive the longer the war goes on – which is understandable given the gravity of the situation. This might explain why the struggle sometimes takes on ambiguous forms, without any supposed impact on the development of the war and its outcome, as in the example of the destruction of Persson’s office, or in the threats against Jews lecturing on completely disparate and different subjects.
The most visible support for Palestine in Swedish academia has been manifested in the student occupations of various campuses, such as the so-called Gaza place in Gothenburg, Lundagård at Lund University and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. An interesting insight into these circles was given in the episode ‘Student Intifada’ in the podcast Apans anatomi, where the Palestine activist Mathias Wåg interviewed two students from the ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ at the Royal Institute of Technology. Apart from some references to threatening “Zionists” and testimonies about the racism against men with a background in the Middle East, the focus of the conversation was entirely focused on the relations between the activists in the student camp; between young and old participants and between students with different backgrounds.
The interviewed students emphasised that the experience had been memorable, the community they had created felt warm, and they had learnt a lot about life in the camp from their new “comrades”. The analysis provided did not offer any particular gender perspective on the movement for Palestine, or indeed on the war between Israel and Hamas. Perhaps the topic became taboo after the, to say the least, problematic gender aspects of the 7 October Hamas attack, which prominent feminists, such as the aforementioned Davis and Butler, dismissed as “pinkwashing” and “resistance” respectively.
Sociologists Dana Kaplan and Eva Illouz have explored how women and men appropriate different forms of sexual capital, and their analysis could be a useful tool for addressing gender issues in social movements in general, and this movement in particular. The two young female students interviewed by Wåg for his podcast did not appear to be familiar with the history of Israel-Palestine or have any connection to the region. However, as will be argued here, the involvement of women in social movements is crucial in terms of addressing the sexual dimensions of 7 October, which some have attempted to dismiss by claiming that Muslim men do not commit rape simply because of their religious and moral beliefs.
Sexual capital is a relational concept. Catherine McKinnon, a prominent feminist lawyer, has highlighted the need to acknowledge the role of heterosexuality in the exploitation of women, which she sees as comparable to the exploitation of workers by capitalism. Kaplan and Illouz have explored the concept of sexual freedom as a form of capital within the context of capitalism and the heterosexual market. The counterpart to this form of sexual capital are incels; i.e. those who are excluded from the entire market.
Drawing on the theories of Kaplan and Illouz, it could be said that women have two functions within the Palestine movement (and particularly in light of the 7 October rapes): first, as a kind of “decoration” to make men look better, and more moral, and second, as “medals of honour” or status symbols that attract the attention of other men. It is therefore in any movement’s best interests to attract white women, who embody an ideal of beauty that signals purity and innocence in a “moral-aesthetic hierarchy”. For women themselves, their presence can be a way of generating sexual capital in the heterosexual marketplace, particularly in a male-dominated battleground.
At the other end of the spectrum, non-white women who are not part of the community, or who are even perceived as working against it, may face different challenges. One example of this tendency is the Swedish-Palestinian journalist Inas Hamdan at the newspaper Sydsvenskan, who has made a series of uncomfortable revelations about left-wing politicians caught chanting anti-Semitic statements at pro-Palestine demonstrations as well as using different slogans in Swedish and Arabic.
One of her articles caused an outcry among Palestinian activists in Malmö, with some 50 demonstrators protesting outside Hamdan’s house. In the same vein, a then PhD student from Lund University, Victor Pressfeldt, criticized Hamdan in an article under the heading ‘Inas Hamdan – Reporter with a hidden agenda’, in the online magazine Magasin Konkret, arguing that she lacked objectivity. Hamdan was recognised as “a key person in the reporting of Palestinian demonstrations”. However, due to previous statements on the X platform, there were concerns about her ability to achieve the “standard of objectivity” expected of a journalist. These concerns were raised by Pressfeldt, who also highlighted that Hamdan had been labelled a “Zionist” on X in a discussion about the two-state solution. In addition, Hamdan had expressed her personal preference for a country where women’s rights and the acceptance of homosexuals are upheld, as opposed to a nation and a culture where the reverse is the case, based on her Palestinian background.
For Pressfeldt, a relatively junior player in the academic field, the widely publicised criticism of Hamdan provided a form of symbolic recognition, particularly in a field where worldwide student protesters taking a stand against Israel’s war act as magnets for young researchers who need to position themselves for the future. The outcome against Hamdan probably generated a level of attention that was completely different from that generated by a standard doctoral thesis in history.
For a white man to portray a non-white woman (with a background in the region in question) as some kind of imperialist because of her stand for women’s rights is of course conspicuous. But because of the legitimacy of the Cause and the objective relations within the field – in terms of university affiliation and other relations within the field – a stand like this can provide a form of symbolic capital that trumps the embodied positions of race and gender. Suddenly, Hamdan’s history, experiences and knowledge as a Palestinian minority, as well as her journalistic work, become irrelevant in relation to the Struggle (which, in this analysis, takes place not only in the big, wide world, but also in the limited academic and intellectual field). Interestingly, while the doctoral student’s moral stance on the Palestinian issue might have generated a kind of symbolic capital in his own field, it was at the expense of a representative of the people he claimed to be fighting for.
Those who read this far may question the value of exploring relations in Sweden and the West in the context of an ongoing, indiscriminate war in Gaza. This is a valid question, particularly for those who believe that activism is solely about creating a better world. However, from Bourdieu’s perspective, it appears that the struggle is also occurring within and between the dominant classes for the forms of capital they have access to. From this viewpoint, our lives and the power relations we are part of do not disappear despite the war, but perhaps even the contrary. It is in this context that academic relations become evident, and it is here that a real showdown between different actors, as well as a reorganisation of these relations, is possible.
Should we then stop caring about what is going on around us? No, that would be regrettable. However, when strong commitments are expressed through implicit punishments, (over-) explicit positioning and misguided political actions at home, it suggests that there may be merit in the theory of weighted self-interest. For those academics who truly aspire to effect change on a global scale, it may be beneficial to embrace a minimum of self-awareness and reflection.
Catrin Lundström is associate professor in sociology and professor designate in ethnicity and migration at Linköping University, Sweden.