On 5 June 2015, the sixth Lova Marjan Rens Master’s Thesis Award was handed out in a ceremony at Leiden University at the end of the annual Lova Study Day. The Study Day was dedicated to the farewell of José van Santen, one of the founding mothers of Lova, from the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology Leiden University. José was one of the jury members and presented the prize.
Seven theses were submitted this year, with a wealth of topics such as female residents of cemeteries in the Philippines, women in post-conflict situations in Liberia, fatherhood in the Netherlands, and a philosophical thesis on well-being and care from activist parenting.
Merel van Manson was awarded the first prize for her thesis Feeling like a Natural Woman: Dutch Female Demand for Male Supply in the World of Gigoloism (Master Gender, Sexuality and Culture, Utrecht University). The female clientele of Dutch gigolos are central and the thesis focuses on the experience of female sexuality, where women take the initiative for a sexual encounter and they are also the ones who pay for the sex. This focus on female agency and on this little-researched form of female sexual experience provides new material on hitherto virtually unknown territory. After all, the subject is surrounded by taboos: all respondents indicated that they did not talk about it at all or only spoke poorly about it with a single friend. Yet Van Mansom has managed to conduct extensive interviews. A great achievement!
Ine Beljaars was awarded the second prize for her thesis The Politics of Bodily Mobility and Ethnoracial Performativity in a Culture of Avoidance: Dance and Difference-Making in the Dutch Kizomba Scene (Master Cultural Anthropology, Leiden University). The thesis focuses on the introduction of a new dance in the Netherlands. It is a beautiful story about who ‘belongs in the Netherlands and who does not’ in a national discourse about citizenship, origins and identity politics.
Fiona Reidy was awarded the third prize for her thesis on abortion law in Ireland, entitled Too Loud a Silence. Re-Imagining the Discourse on Abortion in the Republic of Ireland (Master Cultural Anthropology, University of Amsterdam). The subject of abortion and the author’s personal commitment to her own society were central. The issue of abortion has always been important within feminism; abortion affects the body and autonomy of women, it touches on the issue of individual right to make decisions versus the (traditional patriarchal) power of church and state, and it concerns essential questions of life and death, which women want to discuss as full citizens and individuals.
Featuring in the picture above are Merel van Manson and Ine Beljaars with the flowers they received in the ceremony. Fiona Reidy could not participate.