A journey into the world of Activism and Academia
by Anna Berti Suman, Alice Toietta, Anastasya Ansteeg and Rianne Strijker-van Asperen
Introductory remarks
In July 2025, we convened a Summer School for Young Scholars on the theme of “Activism in and with Academia: Methodological Skills for Navigating a Complex Relationship” at Luiss Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy. The Summer School was launched in the framework of the ENGAGE.EU Research Label 2024, held by an alliance of 9 universities, supported by the Erasmus + Programme of the European Union. From summer 2024 to summer 2025, the convenors team joined efforts to structure a Call for Applications and a program, select and invite lecturers, onboard prospect participants, collect and organise the preparatory materials, and ensure a smooth organization and follow-up to the initiative. The Call for Applications received considerable attention from young scholars also beyond the Engage.EU participating universities, which underlined the pressing nature of the topic and especially the interest from early career researchers to the matter of “Activism in and with Academia”. In the lines that follow, we ask to two of the convenors of the Summer School, Anna Berti Suman and Anastasya Ansteeg, and to an illustrator and activist that joined the program, Alice Toietta, about their experience and view towards the topic.
Why is it so important to be an activist as an academic?
Anna - academic and activist: I believe that not every academic ‘should’ be an activist and there are many great ways to have social impact even without being an activist. However, I am also convinced that some of our research insights and discoveries urge us to take action, including going to the streets and protesting, supporting a social movement, joining an association and many other possibilities. Being an activist often stems from feeling the need to imagine different futures that are more positive and oriented to action. At times, the motivation to become activists come from peers, from research participants or from our students that feel even more than us the urgency of transformations. Being an activist means to question the status quo, not shy out from engaging in difficult conversation. Daring to exit the academic walls and to test our knowledge with civil society, exposing ourselves to critiques but also letting possibilities for substantial impact to happen.
Alice - artist and activist: In this political climate, every person, academic or not, is called to act in any way they see fit. To contrast the rise of new fascisms, to stop the multiple genocides which are happening, to force governments to act upon the climate crisis that is worsening each year and devastating territories and entire populations. When one decides to take more responsibility for themselves as part of the society, it is only natural to wonder “what do I have to offer? Where can I have a real impact?”. Therefore I wonder: what is the power of academia? What can academics, researchers, professors, students do, if they associate and start to organize? No social change or revolution has happened without the fundamental presence of the world of academia, so there is a huge potential there. It is time to tap into it!
Anastasiya: I totally agree with Anna and Alice. From my experience doing research on policy and governance issues, I would add that when I interview or talk to policymakers, civil servants, or other parties involved in policy decisions, I see that they are very interested in academic research to support their work; they recognize academic knowledge and attach a lot of weight to it. Regular inhabitants, and especially under-represented or marginalized communities, do not often have a chance to make their voices heard. That is why I feel that, because academic knowledge is unfortunately often valued more than the knowledge(s) of other communities, we, as academics, need to take responsibility for using our privileged position to amplify other knowledge(s) and make other voices heard.
Which activism stories have inspired you during the Summer School?
Anna: During the Summer School, several compelling stories have been shared. The two themes that stood out can be divided into two thematic streams. The first relates to performing ethnography in challenging settings, and the conscious and pondered decision of the researcher to embrace and align with the expectations of the local research participants, at times clashing with the indications of our institutions. In addition, the decision to enact slow ethnography against the request to speed up fieldwork and fit strict timeframes resulted as an experience of care and a form of activism. The second thread relates to stories of lecturers and participants who are also activists or are supporting activism. The theme of academic boycott of unethical fundings or collaborations came up as a sensitive and urgent theme that deserves more open discussion and exploration.
Alice: I was inspired by the work of one of the lecturers, Siddharth de Souza, who is working on spreading knowledge on complex legal topics to activists and people who need it but have limited literacy in that field. His team and he are working on different ways to do it: through games, illustrations and simple graphics, they make the content more accessible. This can be beneficial for those who are faced with trials and have had no experience with laws and procedures of that sort.
Anastasiya: So many inspiring stories shared during the Engage.EU Summer School on Activism & Academia have made an impact on me. One that stood out was the wholehearted work of Anna and her team, including Alice as an illustrator of the graphic novel, on the Sensing for Justice project. Together with communities affected by environmental pollution, they work on co-creating civic environmental monitoring tools and promote them as legitimate sources of evidence in court. I was also deeply impressed by Alice’s devoted activism and the personal sacrifices she has made saving money and giving up comfort to become a full-time activist for a year, something not many would be willing to do. And, like Alice, I am also very inspired by the work of Siddharth de Souza, from the Indian social venture Justice Adda. His team is working on democratizing access to legal information for ordinary people, who are often excluded because of the complexity and inaccessibility of the way such information is usually shared. They are very creative with using innovative tools like games, fun and well-designed leaflets, and accessible publications, to ensure that people are better informed and equipped to participate in justice-related activities.
What kind of skills can help you for being an activist in academia?
How did the summer school respond to this need?
Which materials are accessible for non participants?
Anna: There is no set of skills that an activist-academic ‘should’ have as it is very context dependent. For example, in undemocratic contexts an activist-academic should be equipped to face personal and legal risks for their actions and positions. In general, one can say that being curious and open to embrace change is key. Being an activist-academic also entails to challenge the quest for objectivity and to disclose our own convictions, in an honest and transparent manner. The ability to exercise deep listening as well as to read and write ‘with care’ proved to be essential. Furthermore, the willingness to explore innovative methods for societal engagement and students’ learnings sounds important. The inclination for interdisciplinary collaboration with peers is also useful. Lastly, key is the ability to translate our academic research into accessible findings for civil society, for example collaborating with illustrators and other forms of visual and performative art.
Anastasiya: Just to add to the very on-point list that Anna gave, I think it is also about defending your own boundaries to not drain your energy. Our own resources are so crucial, and they are very needed to constantly resist accepting the status quo, to experiment, to un-learn and to de-territorialize our own knowledge. This is especially important and often challenging for young scholars, such as PhD students, since they often have to follow the advice of their supervisors and senior peers. And actively practicing empathy, of course.
Anna: The participants to the Summer School could deepen into these themes and (further) develop these skills through stimulating reading materials and engaging experiences during the program. These materials are collected in the final report presented to the Engage.EU alliance after the summer school and can be accessed here. Among these materials, a visual report of the key lessons from the Summer School compiled by illustrator Alice is available here.
How do you intend to keep activism going within this group?
Anna: First and foremost, we created a community of peers that can mutually support each other. Participants now know ‘where to find’ support through bilateral contacts or collaborations in small groups. For example, the Summer School has fostered a collaboration project between researcher Anastasiya Ansteeg and illustrator and activist Alice Toietta and, together, they have created a Zine on Creative Reading Hacks (which can be downloaded here). A WhatsApp Group was formed with lecturers and participants both as a way to practically coordinate logistic aspects during the Summer School, but also as a living space for group engagement. The group is still actively used by its members to share pictures, materials, invitations and reflections. We also set up a Google Group (accessible here) to engage in further discussions on the theme also beyond the group of participants.
We would like to nurture these exchanges through future online and in person gatherings, and one day even a scientific publication written together. These gatherings will revolve around topics such as writing for non-academic audiences on our research matters; facing current distressing news at the geopolitical and environmental level collectively and understanding how to navigate them; preserving space for reading on academic and non-academic matters; precarity and power in current academic structures. Moreover, we are exploring the possibility to scale up the experience to other universities and contexts through spin-off initiatives.
What can readers do, after reading this article?
Anna: Anyone interested in the topic of Activism & Academia can demand more space(s) to explore tensions on the interaction between these two dimensions of society, either from the perspective of one, the other, or both sides. As academics, we can advance the quest for including more civil society’s voices and especially marginalised knowledge(s) in our research. We can create alliances with other scholar activists and - when appropriate - engage in epistemic disobedience and boycott to contest injustices in and around academia. It is the time to be creative and embrace unconventional research and dissemination approaches to share our research findings. As teachers, we can strive to include non-Western sources in our syllabuses to de-colonialise university courses. As activists, we should not feel intimidated by the possibility to ‘cross’ the academic walls, reach out researchers, challenge their positions, ask for help and for collaborations. Lastly, as society, we should act upon the issues that especially young researchers face in navigating the current academic times, for example vulnerability, precarity and exclusion. Only by tackling these issues can we fully explore the potentialities of being activist-academics.
Conclusive words and call to action
The words shared by Alice, Anastasiya and Anna suggest that there is much more to discover on the relationship between activism and academia. First, the need to challenge the stereotype of an ‘activist’ and of an ‘academic’ is visible, as the reality out there is much more nuanced. There seems also to be the need to offer to these young minds formal and informal spaces where to explore the interaction between activism and academia but also other sensitive topics such as power dynamics, inclusion of marginalised voices, eco-anxiety, and the crisis of purpose. An overarching reflection on the resources needed for a meaningful academic contribution to society is timely, especially in times of academic uncertainty and precarity hitting first and foremost early career researchers. Making spaces for alliances between academia and civil society including artists and social movements is compelling, learning how to engage in reciprocal and non-extractive forms of knowledge creation.
As an invitation to continue this conversation, we invite you to two upcoming virtual gatherings open to everyone interested:
On Friday October 17, 12:00-13:30 we will hold a presentation of the zine on ‘Reading as a Method of Protest’ – convened by Alice & Anastasiya. Teams link - ID: 350 487 944 849 - Passcode: 3sf2Mg3e
- On Tuesday October 28, 12:00-13:30 we will convene a session on “Writing for everyone alongside academic writing and how to face the writing block” facilitated by Anna and other Summer School participants. Teams link - ID: 354 642 401 506 9 - Passcode: zV9kw6Ro