Pathways to Academic Freedom
at Ruhr University Bochum
The Garden of Sanctuary Walk was created by students of the Scholars at Risk Advocacy Seminar Academic Freedom and Democracy Under Pressure: Human Rights Advocacy for Scholars at Risk as part of the University without Borders Program. The program bundles the university’s initiatives in support of academic freedom, academic solidarity, and global academic responsibility and citizenship. The Walk was developed in collaboration with Philipp Schwartz Fellows at Ruhr University Bochum, with kind support from the Philipp Schwartz Initiative of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Philipp Schwartz Fellow Dr. Stella Nyanzi
Medical Anthropology & Queer African Studies | Uganda
What academic freedom and responsibility mean to me
To me, academic freedom and responsibility means that I am free to decide what topics I want to research and teach, what methods I prefer to receive and give knowledge, and that I am free from persecution after I have created or shared knowledge. Alongside this freedom, I have the academic responsibility to ethically deploy my privilege as an academic knowledge creator in the service of people who are underprivileged, powerless, excluded and minorities.
The meaning of 'refuge'
Refuge is a place, space, community, system or sense of safe reception away from turbulence, crises, or suffering. It means finding a bubble of safety amidst rampant troubles, persecution, threats, and challenges.
What I took with me when I left
I took my three children with me before anything else. I took the hope of freedom, the longing for safety, the desire for belonging, the beliefs in the achievements and good will of all my ancestors, and the stamina to continue resisting oppression back in the homeland and also in the new country of refuge.
What I wish others understood about (my) displacement
Displacement is a paradoxical combination of losses and gains, rejections and receptions, old endings and new beginnings, uprooting and planting, departure and arrival, mobility and settling down, destruction and building, etc.
An idea I would like to plant here
Although no one ever plans to be a refugee, anyone can be a refugee. Today, I am the refugee, but tomorrow, you could be the refugee.
