Conducting Decolonial Feminist Research in Times of Colonial, Patriarchal Genocide: Theory Vs Praxis

This paper aims to analyze the challenges of reconciling theory and praxis at a time when decolonial theory is prominent, and the feminist perspective is assumed in progressive social science environments. It explores how this reality directly clashes with the academic practices of institutions that self-define as critical, feminist, and decolonial. To achieve this, we will first define the characteristics of militant feminist decolonial research. Subsequently, we will contextualize the situation in Palestine in the aftermath of the 7th of October 2023. Finally, we will resort to autoethnographic practice to investigate the responses that this author has experienced during a year of genocide, epistemicide and soficide; trying to confront the questions on academic responsibility issues that have arisen in this period. The objective is to examine the practical limitations of theory and the theoretical constraints of praxis at the intersections between activism and academia, emphasizing the clashes between activism and academia and the hypocrisy of academic institutions and scholars supposedly committed to those theoretical approaches.