Terms of Reference

Academic Freedom in Times of Multiple Crises

In recent years, academic freedom has increasingly become a contested terrain. Across different regions of the world, universities and academic communities have faced various forms of pressure, ranging from censorship, surveillance, bureaucratic intervention, criminalization, political intimidation, digital harassment, funding restrictions, ideological policing, to the silencing of critical scholarship. These pressures do not occur in isolation. They emerge amid broader multidimensional crises: democratic backsliding, authoritarian resurgence, war and geopolitical conflict, ecological breakdown, economic precarity, digital authoritarianism, racial and gender injustice, and the continuing legacies of colonial knowledge production.

Academic spaces, which should function as sites of critical inquiry, public reasoning, and democratic imagination, have increasingly become vulnerable targets of repression by various authoritarian forces. In many contexts, scholars, students, researchers, journalists, activists, and public intellectuals are pressured to avoid “sensitive” topics, refrain from political critique, or conform to dominant institutional and state narratives. The university, therefore, is no longer merely a space of knowledge production, but also a field of struggle where freedom, authority, dissent, and truth are continuously negotiated.

Yet repression never fully erases resistance. Acts of censorship and silencing often leave behind traces of intellectual, institutional, and collective defiance. These may appear in the form of underground pedagogies, critical publications, student movements, transnational scholarly solidarity, alternative archives, decolonial research practices, feminist and anti-racist scholarship, digital advocacy, and everyday practices of refusing silence.

This edited volume, Academic Freedom in Times of Multiple Crises, invites scholars, researchers, lecturers, students, activists, and public intellectuals from diverse institutional, disciplinary, and geographical backgrounds to reflect on how academic freedom is weakened, negotiated, and defended amid an increasingly uncertain world. The volume seeks to bring together theoretical, empirical, historical, and comparative contributions that examine academic freedom not only as an institutional principle, but also as a lived, contested, and politically charged practice.

Rationale

The question of academic freedom is often discussed through legal, institutional, or normative frameworks. While these perspectives remain important, the current global situation demands a broader and more critical approach. Academic freedom must be understood in relation to power, democracy, coloniality, authoritarianism, neoliberal restructuring, gendered violence, racialized exclusion, digital surveillance, and epistemic injustice.

This edited volume therefore aims to move beyond a narrow understanding of academic freedom as merely the right of individual academics to teach, research, and publish. Instead, it approaches academic freedom as a collective condition that enables critical knowledge production, democratic participation, epistemic plurality, and social justice.

The volume is particularly interested in contributions that address the following questions:

a. How is academic freedom threatened in times of multidimensional crises?

b. How do authoritarian and repressive forces operate within and beyond universities?

c. How are censorship, surveillance, and criminalization normalized in academic life?

d. How do universities respond to, reproduce, or resist attacks on democratic dissent?

e. How can academic freedom be reimagined through epistemic justice, decolonial knowledge, feminist critique, and Global South perspectives?

Objectives of the Edited Volume

This edited volume aims to:

Provide a critical and interdisciplinary analysis of academic freedom in the context of global multidimensional crises.
Examine the relationship between academic freedom, authoritarianism, censorship, surveillance, and criminalization.
Explore the role of universities as contested spaces where democracy, dissent, knowledge, and power intersect.
Document and theorize practices of resistance, solidarity, and intellectual courage within academic communities.
Advance discussions on epistemic justice, decolonial knowledge, and the democratization of academic life.
Build a transnational scholarly conversation involving contributors from diverse campuses, countries, disciplines, and political contexts.

Main Theme

The main theme of the edited volume is:

Academic Freedom in Times of Crises

This theme refers to the weakening, negotiation, and defense of academic freedom amid intersecting political, social, ecological, economic, digital, and epistemic crises. The volume welcomes contributions that critically examine how academic freedom is shaped by structures of power, institutional practices, state repression, market forces, ideological conflict, and collective resistance.

Subthemes

Contributors are invited to submit chapters related, but not limited, to the following subthemes:

Academic Freedom and Global Multidimensional Crises

This subtheme explores how academic freedom is affected by overlapping global crises, including democratic decline, war, ecological crisis, economic inequality, public health emergencies, technological disruption, and social polarization. Contributions may examine how crises are used to justify restrictions on academic speech, research agendas, campus activism, public critique, or institutional autonomy.

Authoritarianism and Repression of Knowledge

This subtheme focuses on how authoritarian regimes, illiberal governments, political elites, religious authorities, corporations, or institutional actors suppress critical knowledge. It invites historical, contemporary, and comparative studies on the repression of scholars, students, intellectuals, archives, curricula, research institutions, and public debate.

Censorship, Surveillance, and Criminalization in Academic Life

This subtheme examines the mechanisms through which academic life is monitored, disciplined, and criminalized. It includes formal and informal censorship, digital surveillance, legal intimidation, administrative sanctions, campus policing, online harassment, and the production of fear within academic communities.

Universities, Democracy, and Politics of Dissent

This subtheme investigates the university as a political and democratic space. It asks how universities can become arenas of dissent, solidarity, public reasoning, and democratic struggle, while also recognizing that universities may reproduce hierarchy, exclusion, and obedience.

Epistemic Justice, Decolonial Knowledge, and Academic Freedom

This subtheme seeks to expand the meaning of academic freedom by linking it to epistemic justice, decolonial critique, Indigenous knowledge, feminist knowledge production, anti-racist scholarship, Global South perspectives, and the politics of whose knowledge counts as legitimate.

Expected Contributions

The edited volume welcomes different types of chapters, including:

Theoretical chapters that develop conceptual frameworks on academic freedom, repression, crisis, and resistance.
Empirical chapters based on qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, ethnographic, archival, legal, or digital research.
Historical chapters that examine academic freedom across specific political periods, regimes, or institutional transformations.
Comparative chapters that analyze academic freedom across countries, regions, institutions, or political contexts.
Reflective essays written by scholars, students, activists, or public intellectuals based on lived experiences of censorship, repression, or resistance.
Policy-oriented chapters that offer recommendations for protecting academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and epistemic justice.

Target Contributors

This call is open to:

a. Lecturers and researchers

b. Postgraduate students

c. Early-career and senior scholars

d. Public intellectuals

e. Student activists

f. Civil society researchers

g. Independent scholars

h. Academic freedom advocates

i. Scholars from the Global South and marginalized academic communities

Collaborative chapters across institutions, countries, disciplines, and generations are strongly encouraged.

Language of Publication

Chapters may be submitted in English. Contributors are encouraged to use clear academic prose that is accessible to interdisciplinary and international readers.

Chapter Structure

Each chapter is expected to follow a coherent academic structure. Authors may adapt the structure according to the nature of their contribution, but the following format is recommended:

a. Title

b. Author name, affiliation, and email

c. Abstract, 150–250 words

d. Keywords, 4–6 words

e. Introduction

f. Conceptual/theoretical framework or literature discussion

g. Methodology or analytical approach, if applicable

h. Main discussion/findings

i. Conclusion

j. References

Reflective essays may use a more flexible structure, but should still maintain analytical clarity, conceptual depth, and relevance to the theme of the volume.

Submission Guidelines

Authors are invited to submit an abstract before submitting the full chapter.

Abstract Submission

The abstract should include:

a. Proposed chapter title

b. Author name and affiliation

c. Email address

d. 150–250-word abstract

e. 4–6 keywords

f. Short author biography, maximum 100 words

Full Chapter Submission

Full chapters should follow these guidelines:

a. Length: 4,000–7,000 words, excluding references

b. Format: Microsoft Word document

c. Font: Times New Roman, 12 pt

d. Line spacing: 1.15

e. Citation style: APA 7th edition

f. Language: English

g. Originality: The chapter must be original and not under consideration elsewhere

h. Plagiarism: All submissions will be checked for originality

i. Referencing: Authors must ensure that all sources are properly cited

Review Process

All submitted abstracts will be reviewed by the editorial team based on relevance, originality, clarity, and contribution to the theme of the volume. Selected authors will be invited to submit full chapters.

Full chapters will undergo editorial review and, where necessary, peer review. Authors may be asked to revise their chapters based on comments from the editors and reviewers. Acceptance of an abstract does not automatically guarantee publication of the final chapter.

The review process will consider:

a. Relevance to the theme and subthemes

b. Originality of argument

c. Theoretical and conceptual contribution

d. Quality of empirical evidence or analytical reflection

e. Clarity of structure and writing

f. Contribution to international debates on academic freedom

g. Ethical sensitivity, especially when discussing repression, violence, or vulnerable groups

Ethical Considerations

Contributors are expected to uphold academic integrity and research ethics. Chapters based on empirical research involving human participants should ensure informed consent, confidentiality, anonymity, and protection from harm.

Given the sensitive nature of academic repression, censorship, surveillance, and criminalization, authors are encouraged to carefully consider the risks faced by informants, institutions, and communities discussed in their chapters. Where necessary, names, locations, or institutional identities may be anonymized.

The editorial team recognizes that writing about academic freedom may itself involve political and institutional risks. Therefore, the volume will prioritize ethical care, author safety, and responsible knowledge production.

Tentative Timeline

Activity	Timeline
Call for Book Chapters invitation	June, 11^th 2026
Abstract submission deadline	July, 2^nd 2026
Notification of accepted abstracts	July, 12^th 2026
Full chapter submission deadline	September, 12^th 2026
Editorial and peer review process	September, 20^th 2026
Revised chapter submission	October, 5^th 2026
Final acceptance notification	October, 10^th 2026
Manuscript submission to publisher	October, 25^th 2026
Expected publication	December 2026

Editorial Direction

This edited volume is not merely intended to document threats to academic freedom. It also seeks to build a critical vocabulary for understanding how academic communities survive, negotiate, and resist repression. The book is expected to contribute to debates on academic freedom, democracy, authoritarianism, epistemic justice, and the politics of knowledge in the twenty-first century.

The volume particularly encourages chapters that:

a. Move beyond descriptive accounts and offer strong analytical arguments

b. Connect local cases to broader regional or global debates

c. Engage critically with power, inequality, and institutional structures

d. Include perspectives from marginalized academic communities

e. Reflect on both repression and resistance

f. Rethink academic freedom from Global South, feminist, decolonial, anti-racist, and critical perspectives

Submission Contact

Abstracts and full chapters should be submitted to:

Khalid Syaifullah

State University of Surabaya

labsosiologiunesa@gmail.com or

khalidsyaifullah@unesa.ac.id

Email subject format:

Abstract Submission – Academic Freedom in Times of Crises – [Author Name]

For further information, please contact the editorial team at the email address above, or +6285161321993 (WhatsApp, Khalid Syaifullah).

Closing Statement

As the world faces an intensification of multidimensional crises, academic spaces have increasingly become vulnerable targets of repression, censorship, and silencing by various authoritarian forces. Yet such repression, censorship, and silencing also leave behind traces of resistance in its many forms, carried forward by those who refuse to remain silent.

This edited volume invites contributors to critically reflect on how academic freedom is weakened, negotiated, and defended amid an increasingly uncertain world. Through this collective project, we hope to create a transnational scholarly conversation that affirms the university as a space of critical thought, democratic dissent, epistemic justice, and intellectual courage.