Resisting Neoliberal Narratives: Student Activists and Palestinian Solidarity

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 1:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Decolonizing Research Methodology In Education

Abstract

This study examines how student activists at a large public university understand their organizing in the wake of October 7, 2023, and how they interpret institutional responses to dissent. Drawing on a transformational resistance framework and critiques of neoliberalism in higher education, this qualitative case study centers student narratives following Encampment Day—a protest demanding transparency and divestment from institutions complicit in the genocide of Palestinians. Through interviews with nine student activists, the study explores how students navigate university branding, surveillance, and repression, while building solidarities and articulating refusal. Findings show how student resistance exposes contradictions between the university’s public commitments to equity and its actions to protect capital, revealing the political consciousness embedded in collective student organizing.

Author

• Sarah A. Hale, University at Buffalo - SUNY