![](https://cdn-wlvacuk.terminalfour.net/media/departments/digital-content-and-communications/images-2024/UWR-team-(teaser-photo).jpg)
Academic scoops academic award for Palestine research book
![Academic scoops academic award for Palestine research book](https://cdn-wlvacuk.terminalfour.net/media/departments/digital-content-and-communications/images-18-19/221130-Ashjan-Ajour-Award.jpg)
A University of Wolverhampton academic has scooped an award for her academic research in the 2022 Palestine Book Awards.
Ashjan Ajour is a lecturer in Sociology in the University’s Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences in Wolverhampton and was offered a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in the Centre for Middle East at Brown University, USA. Her research focuses on gender, feminist theories and movements, decolonization, political subjectivity, and incarceration.
The book, Reclaiming Humanity in Palestinian Hunger Strikes: Revolutionary Subjectivity and Decolonizing the Body, is rooted in feminist ethnography and decolonial feminist theory and explores the subjectivity of Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli prisons, as shaped by resistance. Ashjan examines how these prisoners use their bodies in anti-colonial resistance; what determines this mode of radical struggle; the meanings they ascribe to their actions; and how they constitute their subjectivity while undergoing extreme bodily pain and starvation.
The Middle East Monitor (MEMO) announced the books shortlisted for its 2022 Palestine Book Awards earlier this year. The awards event, now in its eleventh year, honours and celebrates books in English about Palestine. It encourages authors and publishers to produce more books on Palestine.
Over 50 books were submitted for consideration which is the highest record of books put forward for the Awards. The shortlisted winners selected by the judges have added to the diversity of submissions and genres featuring the Palestinian narrative.
Ashjan said: “I am honoured and humbled to have been selected for this prestigious Palestine Award. This is an amazing recognition of my academic work on the experience of hunger strikers in their struggle for freedom and emancipation. I think this is one of the significant events of my professional career and I really appreciate the attention that is being given to my work.”
The judges commented that the book is “a path-breaking study of the most critical aspects of Palestinian resistance”.
Winners for the Palestine Book Awards 2022 were announced during a private awards ceremony earlier this month. The awards dinner was held at the Paddington Hilton Hotel in London.
Anyone looking to study at the University of Wolverhampton should register for one of our forthcoming Open Days. Specific information about courses in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities can be found here.
Find out more about the University's research in these publications:
Research Matters - showcasing our research successes and news from the sector.
The Wolverhampton Briefing - our new quarterly update on our vital research activity.
ENDS
For more information please contact the Corporate Communications Team.