The university in displacement
Sudanese researchers since 2023 and the visa wall
This event is part of a demonstration of what Lera offers for running knowledge events. Its content is written with care and draws on real sources, but the conference has not taken place, and apart from the convener its participants are fictional.
Since 15 April 2023, when war broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, the universities of Khartoum have been closed, looted or destroyed one after another. Professors and students have scattered to Egypt, Chad, Uganda, Saudi Arabia and the safer cities of Sudan. This poster draws on conversations with Sudanese researchers living in Cairo: people who continue their classes from rented rooms and internet cafés, who left their research data behind in abandoned homes, and who still sign with the name of a university that no longer has a building.
These researchers are shut out twice. The first time, war separates them from their institution. The second time, Europe's border closes the way into the scholarly community. The LAGO research collective, drawing on European Commission data, has estimated that African applicants paid around sixty million euros for rejected Schengen visas in 2024 alone, and that the lower a country's income per head, the more likely its citizens' visas are to be refused. A conference invitation, a letter from the host university, even a full grant, does not breach this wall.
A conference that speaks of epistemic justice and takes place in Europe has to face this reality. Full remote participation, with the same time and the same standing as presence in the room, is not charity; it is the minimum condition. This poster is presented by its author from Cairo.
Findings
- Most of the researchers we spoke to had lost years of field data and had kept no backup outside Sudan.
- Access to journals, which had come through university subscriptions, was cut off overnight when the universities closed.
- Visa refusal, not the cost of travel, was the most common reason they gave for their absence from European conferences.
References
Africanews. 2025. "Visa denied: African travellers hit hard by soaring Schengen rejections." 26 May 2025 (reporting LAGO Collective analysis of European Commission visa statistics).
Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.