Rabeea Ahmad receives Hélène Phoa Gender Studies Research Thesis Prize 2022

For the third time the Hélène Phoa Gender Studies Research Thesis Prize has been awarded. The winner is Rabeea Ahmad with her thesis titled 'The Transparency/Opacity Conundrum: Locating Dutch Deportation Regimes at Schiphol Detention Center'. The prize was awarded during the diploma Graduation Ceremony of the Research Master Gender Studies on October 31, 2022. 

The jury enjoyed reading all submitted theses, as they offer an exciting view of what constitutes Gender Studies for a new generation. Although the jury encountered a variety of topics and approaches all submitted work had one thing in common: all authors were committed to knowledge production that contributes to social justice and inclusive diversity.

De Hélène Phoa Gender Studies Research Thesis Prize

The Hélène Phoa Thesis Prize was established by the family of Hélène Phoa, who passed away far too young in 2019. She was a graduate of the Research Master Gender Studies at Utrecht University.

The thesis prize came into being as a way for Hélène’s family to turn their grief and sadness into something positive. With the help of generous family members and friends, and supported by the Gender Studies team, the Phoa family set up a dedicated fund at the Utrecht University Fund. This way, Hélène Phoa’s love for Gender Studies and her fight for diversity and inclusion will be continued and commemorated.

The prize is intended to support a graduate as they move from being a student in gender studies to the next phase of their life, where 'doing gender' may find a new form. The prize includes a thousand euros, the awarding of which is made possible in part by the Friends of Humanities Utrecht University fund.

The submissions spanned an astonishing array of topics and approaches, and the quality was generally very high, proving again the richness of the Gender Studies field.

Pauline Phoa, one of Hélène's sisters, has been a member of the jury, for the third time. "It was again a delight to be in the jury. I really enjoyed meeting different members of the Gender Studies team and reconnecting with last year’s winner Sarah Trottier. The submissions spanned an astonishing array of topics and approaches, and the quality was generally very high, proving again the richness of the Gender Studies field."

"As an academic from outside the Gender Studies field, but with a keen interest in multidisciplinarity, it was inspiring to participate in the discussions during the selection process. We – the Phoa family – are so happy that the Gender Studies team made it possible to also reward two 'runners-up' because choosing only one winner would not really do justice to all the other wonderful theses that were submitted."

Two submitted theses received a honourable mention: Muhammad Khurram, Queerness, Illness: The Psychosomatic Materialities of Pakistanis and Sophia Pekowsky, Postpartum as Portal: Reimagining Western Conceptions of the Human Through Linocut Printmaking Workshops on Postpartum and Motherhood. The jury for this edition consisted of Prof. dr. Rosemarie Buikema (chair), dr. Adnan Hossain, dr. Pauline Phoa, Sarah Trottier (former winner of the prize), Arja Firet en Jasmijn van Engelen.

Interview with Rabeea Ahmad

Rabeea Ahmad is the third recipient of the Hélène Phoa Thesis Prize. She told us about her winning thesis and what receiving the prize means to her.

How does it feel to receive the Hélène Phoa Gender Studies Research Thesis Prize?

I am incredibly honored, privileged and so very grateful to be receiving this prize. I would like to extend my humblest thanks to the family of Hélène Phoa for recognizing the importance of gender studies research.

It has been such an interesting transition after submitting my thesis and formally completing the masters, so receiving this prize at this particular moment in time is so validating. The prize provides a kind of reassurance at the end of an intensive two year program in the middle of a pandemic, so far away from home.

I feel like I can give a token of acknowledgement to my mother Sadia and my late father Ghufran, to the experience brown migrants like them and so many others before them, have had so often.

What was the topic of your thesis?

In my thesis I explore Schiphol airport and its immigration detention center as examples of one of the most insidious ways power works; to hide in plain sight. Systems that reproduce global cycles of oppression very rarely present themselves to the public as such. Airports are considered sites of transition, empty, temporary spaces that are devoid of meaning. This obscures the workings of power and exclusionary practices that have become ingrained in the practices of international border and migration management.

My thesis argues that airports are, in fact, sites of cultural self-representation, where nation-states communicate how they view others and want to portray themselves to the world. Using queer theory’s scavenger methodology (Halberstam 1998), I read visual, digital, autoethnographic and interview content for Dutch self-representative narratives that inform contemporary organization of power. Utilizing the notion of white innocence (Wekker 2016), I argue that these representations are premised on migrant exclusion which is bolstered by a cultural denial of histories of racism and colonization.

I consider the implications of excluding the presence of a detention center in Schiphol airport’s self-representation and trace my search for the Schipholbrand monument as a haunting reminder of the history of immigration detention at the airport. Through the informational video by the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Defence, Immigration detention in the Netherlands (2019) I observe that there are visual contradictions in the self-representative portrayals of logical objectivity and legality. The absence, or seemingly deliberate ‘absenting’ of the centrality of airports, is what I call the transparency/opacity conundrum. This is made evident through the process of asylum at Schiphol cloaks the deportation regimes that inform immigration detention and deportation in the Netherlands.

Operating from a reflexive and critically self-reflective position that feminist research advocates for, I found that in order for a non-Dutch speaking, international student of color with limited resources to address an ongoing crisis of migrant incarceration in an unfamiliar country meant combining several research methods.

What was the research and writing process like?

I started off with a completely different research question, something that strictly focussed on a connection between migrant desirability and immigration detention, but I simply did not have the time, resources nor language skills in Dutch to do so. Trying to argue for the importance and validity of Schiphol detention center as a site of analysis meant including so much of my personal experiences of being a migrant in the Netherlands into my argument.

Operating from a reflexive and critically self-reflective position that feminist research advocates for, I found that in order for a non-Dutch speaking, international student of color with limited resources to address an ongoing crisis of migrant incarceration in an unfamiliar country meant combining several research methods.

I used visual, textual, interview and autoethnographic content to sketch a view of Schiphol detention center as a site that can be a prime example of the way nation states selectively represent themselves to audiences domestically and abroad. Migration and asylum procedures at airports that have incarceration as an in-built element reveals the extent that borders are securitized and how regularized this practice has gotten. The perceived threat of migration related detention, or deportability, is one that many EU citizens and permanent residents do not even think about and through this project I have tried to bring into focus the persistent presence of it at Schiphol.

Like all research and writing, however, this thesis was a communal effort. I am indebted to my supervisors Dr. Jamila Mascat and Dr. Kath Bassett, my family back in Karachi, my brilliant peers and my dear loved ones: Sam, Sophia, Hannah, Philine, Elfi, Krista, Cynthia, Eyerusalem, Ceyda, Khurram, Keerthi, Maheen, Ihsan - I could not have done it without them and this is just as much their moment as it is mine. The shape of this research changed with every roadblock I encountered, but I am honored to have had the opportunity to research something not many had considered to do before. The incredulous responses and pitying looks I got from people while writing this thesis did take a toll on me, but I am proud that I was able to hand in work that I persisted with. I’m glad I stuck with the difficulty and failure that came with researching something heavily under-researched.

What does the future hold for you?

For now I’m trying to learn to build a life here in the Netherlands. I haven’t had a break from school in years so I’m figuring out how to navigate an unfamiliar job market. I will continue my queer, anti-racist activist work and hopefully in the future work towards a PhD project that I can fully immerse myself in. I’m hoping that the future presents opportunities for greater community building, self-discovery and moments of joy.