Ezwa – Holding Uncertainty Together

Keynote lecture with Sandi Hilal.

Drawing on DAAR projects such as The Living Room, DAAS, and the Tree School, this lecture reflects on the relationship between self-determination, collective reflection, and ʿezwa (عزوة), an Arabic concept describing the strength that comes from knowing that uncertainty does not have to be carried alone, but can be held together. Emerging from experiences of displacement and political struggle, these practices suggest that self-determination requires the capacity to remain open to uncertainty and transformation, while collective reflection depends on forms of mutual support that make such openness possible. It is through this ongoing negotiation between self-determination, collective reflection, and ʿezwa that knowledge becomes grounded.

Sandi Hilal is a Palestinian architect, writer, and researcher. She is a co-founder, with Alessandro Petti, of Decolonising Architecture Art Research.

This keynote lecture is a part of this year's European Summer School in Cultural Studies Epistemic Equity.

About the Summer School

What knowledge counts, and what counts as knowledge? This is the core question for this year's European Summer School in Cultural Studies. Doctoral and other researchers from eight universities across Europe will come together at the University of Copenhagen in the last week of August to address this urgent question through panel presentations, debate, exchange, and workshops in an invitation-only symposium. 

Four Keynote Addresses will be open to the public in the evenings. Each lecture will be given by a significant international researcher whose work is central to issues of epistemic equity.  You are warmly invited to attend any or all of these lectures, and to participate in the Q&A afterwards. This is an opportunity to hear significant speakers and at the same time to engage with early career researchers attending the ESSCS from Germany, the Netherlands, France, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland and beyond.