Last week, members of the Nonviolence International (NVI) team traveled to the University of Massachusetts Amherst for a landmark gathering in the field of resistance studies and action: the first Intergalactic Conference on Resistance Studies, held from June 18–21, 2026.
The conference was organized by the UMass Amherst Resistance Studies Initiative, together with Matt Meyer, Monica Carrer and Stellan Vinthagen. It also marked ten years since the appointment of the world's first endowed chair in the study of nonviolent direct action and civil resistance. The scale of the gathering reflected the growth and vitality of the field, bringing together more than 240 sessions, 60 organizations, and scholars and activists from over 60 countries across 50 thematic areas.
The conference's name, "Intergalactic," draws inspiration from the Zapatista movement. In 1996, the Zapatistas convened the First Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism, often remembered simply as the "Intergalactic Encounter." The term was an invitation to imagine solidarity that transcends borders, identities, and institutions, a call for movements around the world to recognize themselves as part of a shared struggle for dignity and justice. By adopting this name, the conference embraced that same spirit, seeking to move beyond the boundaries between disciplines, between movements, and between the academy and the street.
NVI Co-Director Sami Awad participated in a panel on occupied peoples, speaking on Palestine alongside activists representing other occupied territories and stateless peoples, including Western Sahara, Puerto Rico, and Kurdistan-Rojava. The discussion reflected something NVI has long understood: occupations are not isolated from one another. The tools of domination, land seizure, resource extraction, surveillance, and the criminalization of resistance, travel across borders and reappear in different contexts. So too does the knowledge of how to resist them. Bringing these voices into conversation with scholars who study resistance as a discipline is precisely the kind of cross-pollination the field needs.
NVI Co-Director Michael Beer and NVI Programs and Communications Coordinator Bianca Peracchi also presented the Global Nonviolent Tactics Database with a focus on prefigurative resistance, and explored how movements can embody the values and relationships they seek to create while engaging in strategic resistance.
The conference convened at a moment that organizers described with unusual directness: a time of escalating violence, rising authoritarianism, and shrinking space for dissent around the world. In many ways, the gathering embodied the original Zapatista meaning of "intergalactic" , creating spaces where people from different geographies, experiences, and struggles can recognize one another as companions in a shared journey.
Participants did not gather merely to exchange ideas. They came to build relationships, compare lessons, and imagine new forms of collective action. During the conference, scholar Stephen Zunes reminded participants of the importance of shining a light on successful cases of nonviolent action that have achieved tangible results in the past, particularly at a time when despair and cynicism can feel overwhelming.
Perhaps the most important aspect of gatherings like these is the opportunity to connect across movements and disciplines and to leave with new insights, renewed hope, and campaigns that can be pursued together. For NVI, the conference reinforced a belief that guides all of our work: resistance is not a last resort. It is a practice, a discipline, and, at its deepest level, a way of remaining fully human in conditions that push toward dehumanization.
The scholars and activists in that room were engaged in the same work through different means. We left Amherst with new relationships, new research, and the particular kind of energy that comes from being surrounded by people who, despite everything, have not given up.
Nonviolence International is currently taking part of the organization of many different events:
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In October 2026, the Humanitarian Disarmament Forum will take place in New York City, USA.
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In January 2027, there will be a Sahrawi Solidarity Summit in the refugee camps near Tindouf, Algeria.
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And in September 2027, we will have an active nonviolence gathering in Berlin, Germany.
We hope you will join us in one of these activities!
