2025 BRISMES Conference Student Paper Prize Winner Announced
We are delighted to announce that Sena El Banna has been selected as the winner of the 2025 BRISMES Conference Student Paper Prize with Pauline Klose-Abdelghani receiving Honourable Mention.
The BRISMES Conference Student Paper Prize was established in 2021 to support BRISMES student members in the development of peer-reviewed work. The winner receives £300 and is mentored through a review process at the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (BJMES) by a senior member of the BRISMES academic community.
Congratulations to Sena and Pauline, and thank you to everyone who submitted their paper for consideration.
2025 Winner
Sena El Banna
Family afterlives of activism among Egyptian Islamist women since the Revolution
Sena provides an original and theoretically intriguing contribution to feminist and social movement scholarship by examining how revolutionary activism reshapes Islamist women’s gender subjectivities within family and everyday life contexts. The argument is clearly developed and situated within relevant literature, effectively challenging dominant secular–liberal interpretations of feminist agency by demonstrating hybrid forms of gender consciousness emerging from religious frameworks. Methodologically, the study is robust, drawing on rich life-history interviews supported by reflexive positionality and careful ethical consideration, allowing nuanced insight into post-revolutionary biographical transformations. The analysis successfully shifts attention from organisational outcomes to intimate social arenas, offering a significant conceptual intervention with strong empirical grounding that traces the transition from a "protection-obedience bargain" to a "fairness ethic". By demonstrating how protest repertoires and moral reorientations travel from the streets into domestic governance, the work provides a rigorous and cohesive flow of ideas. A valuable contribution across the disciplines of gender studies, Middle East politics, and political sociology.
Sena El Banna is a PhD candidate and Associate Fellow in Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA). Her research examines how gender, migration and political repression intersect in the lives of Egyptian Islamist and ex-Islamist women involved in the Arab Spring, using personal narrative interviews to centre women’s lived experiences and reshape debates in Islamist and feminist scholarship. She holds an MA in Sociology from the University of Cambridge and an MA in Politics plus a diploma in Public Policy and Administration from the American University in Cairo. Raised and trained within Al-Azhar Institute and with independent scholars, she brings a strong grounding in Islamic studies to her work. Sena has previously taught at Cairo University, the American University in Cairo and online Arab academies, and has long experience in qualitative NGO research and research management.
2025 Honourable Mention
Pauline Klose-Abdelghani
Echoes of Erasure: ‘Modern Judeo-Arabic’ and Communal Belonging among Arabs of ’48 in Tel Aviv-Jaffa
This paper explores linguistic practices among Arabs of ’48 (Palestinian citizens of Israel) in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, focusing on their impact on identity, inclusion, and intra-communal fragmentation. It sheds light on estrangement from and erasure of the Arabic language and culture in the unique field of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. It introduces a so-called ‘Modern Judeo-Arabic’ – Arabic written in Hebrew script for digital communication – a common practice among Arabs of ’48 from the Jaffa area. Unlike historically documented Judeo-Arabic, this form of Arabic has evolved independently and serves as a powerful marker of linguistic adaptation in response to cultural-linguistic erasure, particularly for younger generations attending Jewish schools and pressured to adapt in Jewish-majority spaces. Read more
Pauline Klose-Abedelghani is a humanitarian worker, international cooperation professional, and Middle East Studies scholar with extensive experience in project management, research, cultural mediation, and nonprofit leadership across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. She currently serves as Co-Director of a humanitarian NGO in Greece. She is fluent in Palestinian Arabic and Hebrew, and completed her academic education at Humboldt University Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin, graduating with distinction with a Master’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies of the Middle East.
With over four years of fieldwork experience in Tel Aviv, Jaffa, and the West Bank, Klose-Abedelghani’s research bridges linguistics, anthropology, and socio-political analysis to focus on the lives of Arabs of ’48 (Palestinian citizens of Israel). Her strong linguistic and thematic background, coupled with her lived and professional experience on the ground, informs her deep understanding of the region’s historical and contemporary complexities. Ultimately, her work offers vital insights into how Arabs of ’48 navigate language, identity, and belonging between Israel and Palestine.