Fingers crossed behind the back: tactics of hidden resistance in Russian wartime academia - Higher Education

This study examines the transformation of scholarly activity and academic freedom in Russia under state military censorship and new ideological interventions following the outbreak of the war with Ukraine. Pre-war higher education was characterized by a significant number of restrictions on academic freedom, combined with neoliberal reforms that increased the controllability of universities. The primary goal is to understand how academics navigate high uncertainty, new restrictions on academic freedom, and career threats. Using a theoretical framework based on Scott and de Certeau, the study analyzes localized reactions on external pressure and everyday resistance. Forty in-depth semi-structured interviews with faculty from Russian universities, conducted between May and September 2022, form the basis of this research. The interviewees represented diverse backgrounds, career stages, disciplines, and locations, both within and outside of Russia. The findings reveal a range of tactics, including normalization, adapting research portfolios, finding common ground, avoidance, bootlegging, window dressing, creating safe spaces, and exit. Two general conclusions emerge: tactics focus primarily on protecting teaching over research, and exit power is crucial to everyday resistance. Negotiating exit power facilitated the creation of safe spaces within universities that offered greater academic freedom, while leaving the university became a prominent form of protest.