Editorial Perspective – Squids, University 3.0 and Activism

Abstract

I would argue, we could all do with becoming a little more rebellious. And this word, “rebel”, often appears in the context of academic freedom. As Howson in this volume suggests, not having had a universal definition of academic freedom has not stopped at least some countries of having histories of universities as hubs of rebellion. And as Manathunga states: universities offer “important spaces for resistance, rebellion, and political rejuvenation”. Connected to this is, I would argue, that universities are key to creating that underpinning knowledge for us humans to understand the difficult choices we will surely have to make. And here today, writing this, I would argue that this Special Issue is one of our feeble attempts to nurture that little bit of healthy rebellion, a little bit of academic activism for the sake of our collective futures, feeble in the context of the size of the challenges upon us: from human extinction, the rejection of democracy, to the denunciation of the value of knowledge. But it's not so feeble in the light of slowly, but steadily building up of a critical body of work that will undoubtedly be used to build our future institutions that will be much more designed to handle these challenges without retreating into a helpless paralysis, one I feel has affected many of our institutions of today.