We are witnessing concerning developments across the world with increasing attacks on academics, including unlawful detentions, visa revocations, violent repression of student protests, and dramatic budget cuts to higher learning institutions. Many of our members are being directly or indirectly affected by these challenges. Recognising that many of our members are working diligently to maintain our universities and institutions as critical, welcoming spaces of learning in the face of these difficulties, the incoming President of EASA and Executive Liaison to the EASA Working Group on Human Rights and Academic Freedom, Hayal Akarsu, would like to invite you all to an online community check-in on May 23, 12:00-13:00 PM (CET). This will be an informal gathering open to any EASA member who wishes to raise concerns, share their experiences, or simply connect with fellow anthropologists in a safe and open environment.
At the same time, our members are reminded that the EASA Working Group on Human Rights and Academic Freedom is taking action to defend the fundamental principles essential to our scholarly community. Our mission includes monitoring and documenting violations of academic freedom and human rights, developing policy initiatives based on gathered evidence, creating supportive frameworks such as university guidelines and best practices, and organizing events to raise awareness and foster collaboration.
We need your help. To effectively advocate for change, we are collecting data on violations experienced by academics within our network. If your academic freedom or human rights have been compromised, or if you have witnessed systematic attacks on these principles at your institution, please share your experience through our confidential reporting form: Academic Freedom Violation Report Form.
Your contribution will strengthen our collective effort to protect the integrity of social anthropology research and teaching across Europe.
EASA members should have already received an invitation and a registration form via email. If this is not the case, remember to check your spam folder, and if no information has been sent to you although you are formally a member of EASA in 2025, please write us an email to membership(at)easaonline.org
