The winning Bachelor’s thesis, written by Renske Hollants is titled: Male perception of CEDAW implementation: Palestinian civilian aversion in the settler colonial context. A virtual ethnographic approach to the Facebook page Al-ḥirak al-jamahiri li-isqat CEDAW. The other nominees in the Bachelor’s thesis category were Hana Elramly and Annemarie van der Grift.

Asma Balfaqih titled her winning Master’s thesis Power in Settler-Colonial Terms: Tracing the Constructed Legal Frontiers of Palestinian Identity in Israel. The other nominees in the Master’s thesis category were Kerttu Åvall and Eleri Connick.

The prizes consist of € 150 in book vouchers for Hollants and € 250 in book vouchers for Balfaqih.

About the ACMES Thesis Prize

The Amsterdam Centre for Middle Eastern Studies Amsterdam annually awards two prizes to the best BA thesis and the best MA thesis in Middle Eastern Studies for work completed at the University of Amsterdam during the preceding academic year. The submitted theses should focus on the Middle East or subjects related to this region and must have received a grade of 8 or higher.

The jury is appointed by the ACMES Steering Board based on the fields in which the theses have been written. This year, members of the BA jury were prof.dr. Uğur Üngör, dr. Paul Aarts and Sakina Loukili, MA. Members of the MA jury were dr. Farid Boussaid, Amir Taha, MA and Marthe de Roos, Msc.