2026 Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize Winners Announced

We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2026 Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize for the best PhD dissertation on a Middle Eastern topic in the Social Sciences or Humanities awarded by a British University between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025. 

This prize was established jointly in 1986 by the Leigh Douglas Memorial Fund and BRISMES in memory of Dr Leigh Douglas who was killed in Beirut in 1986.

We received 17 amazing submissions and we would like to congratulate our prize winners and thank everyone who submitted their dissertations for consideration. We would also like to recognise and thank our Prizes Committee and external reviewers for the considerable time and expertise they have dedicated to assessing the submissions.

2026 Joint Winners (£300 each)

Omar Abolnaga (University College London) 

 The Production of ʿAshwaʾiyyat: (In)formality, Discourse, and the Politics of Space in Contemporary Cairo 

Omar Abolnaga’s excellent thesis offers a critical and socially engaged examination of urban space and its governance mechanisms in Egypt. By deconstructing the wider discourse surrounding ʿashwaʾiyyat in Cairo, the work reveals how the term is deployed by different actors in ways that ultimately marginalise and stigmatise a broad spectrum of the city’s residents. Beyond its theoretical grounding, the thesis stands out for its methodologically rigorous and creative approach to fieldwork, providing a compelling illustration of the ethical challenges of conducting research in the SWANA region. This work not only makes an original contribution to urban studies but also meaningfully challenges dominant narratives, making it an invaluable addition beyond the field.

Abdulla Moaswes (University of Exeter)

Interconnections Across Palestine and Kashmir: The Politics and Economy of Indian-Israeli Settler Colonialism

Abdulla Moaswes’ thesis offers an original and urgent intervention into the study of settler colonialism by examining the mutually reinforcing link between Israeli and Indian state practices. Rather than a standard comparative study, Moaswes introduces the sophisticated concept of ‘cross-colonisation’ to explain how colonial strategies circulate through transnational political and ideological flows. Grounded in a powerful anti-colonial standpoint and shaped by the researcher’s own positionality, the work brilliantly positions Palestine as a central symbol in global struggles against dispossession. By connecting macro-level neoliberal capitalism with the phenomenological realities of exile, the thesis makes a courageous and significant contribution to global political economy and postcolonial studies.

2026 Joint Runners Up (£125 each) 

Maram Theodory (University of Birmingham)

Constructions of Disability, Motherhood, and Activism in Palestine

This thesis presents a rigorously decolonial analysis of disability and motherhood under occupation, arguing that maternal care for children with disabilities constitutes a profound form of national resistance. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork conducted under exceptionally challenging conditions, the author demonstrates how mothers move from individualised understandings of disability to structural, grassroots advocacy. The thesis advances the concept of structural disability and posits maternal activism as both care work and political intervention. Her theorisation of spiritual understandings of disability challenges the medicalised and neoliberal paradigms often imposed by international aid frameworks. This exceptional work is a significant and timely contribution to Middle East studies and critical disability studies, offering an innovative framework for future research.

Florence Wolstenholme (Queen Mary University of London)

Examining the role and effect of offshore secrecy jurisdictions in the United Arab Emirates

This thesis makes a genuinely original intervention by repositioning Dubai not as a peripheral curiosity but as a structurally significant secrecy jurisdiction entangled with imperial legacies and racialised hierarchies of accumulation. Drawing on a rich theoretical architecture—including the ‘licit life of capitalism’ and ‘zonal capitalism’—the author skilfully centres the everyday operations of offshore incorporation over headline-grabbing scandals. Through sharp ethnographic material and a clear four-part analytical framework, the work uncovers the geoeconomic significance of the UAE in critical Gulf studies. It is a well-conceived and timely piece of doctoral research that bridges the gap between critical political economy and investigative methodology.