alQaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society is excited to announce our Fourth Academic School. This year, the School will be held virtually over the period of five weeks, comprising five sessions on September 5, 12, 19, 26 and October 3.

The Academic School is a space for activists and academics to reflect on sexual and gender politics within the settler colonial context in Palestine. alQaws has been organizing the Academic School since 2014 as a unique opportunity to learn, share experiences, and integrate political activism and academia into queer Palestinian liberation discourse.

From Pain to Hope: On Confronting the System

alQaws’ Fourth Academic School comes as the need rises to reflect on this moment in history. It serves to center our lived experiences of oppression and pain created by the capitalist-patriarchal-colonial system we live under, and massively exacerbated by the current global pandemic. The Academic School aims to transform this pain into hope by discussing what we mean by “confronting the system” and imagining just alternatives.

Over the past year, we have witnessed major changes in Palestine in the ways we confront oppressive systems from feminist and queer perspectives. We seek to bring these organizing experiences grounded in hope and liberation to the center of academic and activist discussions, as opposed to focusing on the nature of oppression itself.

The Academic School tackles questions related to the capitalist-patriarchal-colonial system in the context we live in; how we understand our position in relation to this system; how the system impacts us and our relationships on a psycho-social level. From there, we hope to delve deeper into the ways, possibilities, mechanisms, and goals we have to confront this system from a nuanced and complex feminist/queer lense, centering the conversation around sexual and gender politics within the settler colonial context in Palestine. 

The school employs three primary levels of analysis:

• Confronting the system: our understanding of the problem; our positionality related to it; and political knowledge -both theoretical and practical- on confronting the system.

• Hope, imagination, and the future: how to transform our experiences from the personal to the political, broadening our understanding and creating  potentials for confrontation and growth.

• Organizing contexts: political and organizing experiences; as well as the social and psychological aspects of confronting the system.

Virtual Possibilities

alQaws had organized three Academic Schools since 2014, each ran for 3 days of panels and discussions. This year the School sessions will be conducted virtually via Zoom, following global and local health regulations. However, we see the virtual school this year as an opportunity to make these conversations more accessible to people across different colonial borders, and folks with mobility limitations.

On the other hand, we believe that the interactive nature of group discussions are an essential aspect of the participants’ experience at the Academic School. So we still set some limitations on the number of accepted applicants, to allow for an interactive space to reflect, share, and think collectively within the group.

Registration

The Academic School is a space for activists, academics, and professionals who have academic and/or intellectual interests in sexual and gender diversity issues, given that they are:

• Able to commit to the five virtual sessions.
• Able to commit to reading a number of articles and materials prior to and during the five weeks of the School (3-4 articles per week).

Interested applicants should fill out this registration form.

Registration will be open until August 19, 2020.

Applicants will be contacted no later than 8/26/2020.

More about the Academic School:

alQaws and confrontation over the past year

alQaws’s Third Academic School

The Academic School’s joint publication with Jadal

A volume of articles on sexual and gender politics published with Jadaliyya