We, researchers at RASTER, laud the students for their commitment to solidarity and action in the face of genocide and an institutional response of indifference, avoidance, and dismissiveness to that genocide by the university.
Fleeing the draft with a toxic passport: How tourism facilitates Russian citizens’ anti-war protest
In this essay, Olga Tkach expands the understanding of tourism beyond leisure travel to include the unnoticed form of survival mobility and political protest that allows Russian draft evaders to cross borders safely, avoid the risk of conscription, and thus express their pacifist views. This tourist-like border crossing functions as a grassroots asylum-seeking activity in the context of the deprivation of mobility rights of Russian citizens since February 2022 and in the absence of functioning international instruments that would recognise them as people at risk.
Framing migration as hybrid warfare produces politics of exception
In their text, postdoctoral researcher Daria Krivonos and associate professor Anitta Kynsilehto analyze how the language of ‘crisis’ and the extraordinariness of the context at the Finnish-Russian border becomes productive, doing the political work of allowing the state to expand its enforcement and security agendas.
Uudelleenjulkaisu: Vapaa Liikkuvuuden lausunto hallituksen esitysluonnokseen oleskelulupien ehtojen tiukennuksista
Uudelleenjulkaisemme Vapaa Liikkuvuus-verkoston lausunnon hallituksen esitysluonnokseen oleskelulupien ehtojen tiukennuksista. Vapaa Liikkuvuus -verkoston mukaan “muutokset tarkoittaisivat sitä, että paperittoman siirtolaisen olisi miltei mahdotonta virallistaa asemaansa Suomessa, vaikka hänellä olisi työpaikka ja virallinen passi.”
No Normal Eurovision in an Abnormal Europe: Why We Must Boycott Eurovision
In her text on boycotting Eurovision, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki Zoë Jay reflects on the cultural and political environments that have enabled Israel’s participation so far, and on why boycotts are both necessary and effective.
Statement on Aalto Students for Palestine’s meeting with Aalto University Leadership regarding the community letter: “Act in Solidarity with Palestine”
In this statement, Aalto Students for Palestine discuss the main demands they had for the university and the university’s general stance regarding the unparalleled humanitarian crisis happening in Palestine.
Reimagining political protest: Russian-speaking demonstrations against the closure of the Finnish eastern border
In this text, postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University Iuliia Gataulina directs attention to the narratives of Russian-speaking communities in public debate around the closing of the Finnish Eastern border and asks how these somewhat “depoliticized” and personalized narrative of kinship and empathy can challenge our understandings of what political protest can mean.
Keskustelu kaksoiskansalaisuuden riskeistä ei perustu tutkittuun tietoon vaan uusii ennakkoluuloja ja väärinkäsityksiä
Tekstissä Tampereen yliopiston kasvatussosiologian professori Nelli Piattoeva ja Itä-Suomen yliopiston Venäjän ja rajatutkimuksen professori Olga Davydova-Minguet haastavat julkisessa keskustelussa Suomen ja Venäjän kaksoiskansalaisiin liitettyjä uhkakuvia ja ennakkoluuloja.
The Palestinian Right of Return: A Call for Legal Solutions and the Prevention of Settler-Colonial Displacement
In light of the recent forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, Chloe Kihlman (LL.B.) contextualizes why Palestinians (not) becoming refugees in Egypt (or any other country) becomes a choice between personal security and loss of one’s homeland. This is to preface the argument that the international “community” and international human rights law have failed to guarantee the Palestinians their recognized right of return, questioning its capabilities in finding a solution in light of its own imperialist history, and calling for a new solution to ensure the realization of this right and the establishment of new legal rules to protect other groups from a similar fate in the future.
Suffocating the academic and student solidarity movement for Palestinian liberation in Finnish higher education
In this essay, PhD researcher Anaïs Duong-Pedica seeks to make sense of the increasing academic repression of Palestine solidarity and Israel’s critics, and to highlight how free speech and academic freedom are at risk in Finnish universities when it comes to the question of Palestine and how being silenced by universities in Finland has become a collective experience for those who dare to speak truth to power.
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