Uneducating settlers: Samia Al-Botmeh, ‘Palestinian higher education: resistance to settler colonialism in the face of erasure’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Uneducating settlers: Samia Al-Botmeh, ‘Palestinian higher education: resistance to settler colonialism in the face of erasure’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 2025

08Sep25

Abstract: This paper strives to illuminate the logics of Israel’s attacks on Palestinian higher education and historicises the ways in which Palestinian universities are significant sites of resistance to settler colonialism in the face of erasure. Since October 2023, the Israeli genocide in Gaza has taken the colonial logics of erasure to their most extreme conclusion: the mass destruction of schools and colleges in addition to the relentless killing of students and staff. Historically, Palestinians have come to consider higher education as a sphere where power, agency and resistance can be understood and relations of solidarity can be built. Palestinians place huge value on higher education as they see it as a mechanism of resistance but also a means to build a free and flourishing Palestinian society. By analysing these experiences through an anti-colonial lens, this paper argues that Palestinian universities serve vital functions that are specific to the struggles of colonised populations. First, providing a vital intellectual and viable space for intense political debate and plurality of ideas that contribute towards social and political movements aimed at liberation. Second, providing a platform for imagining a more just life, free from subjugation and colonial oppression.

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