Introducing: Suzan Abozyid
Since 1 October 2022, Suzan Abozyid is a PhD-candidate at the Institute for History. Below she introduces herself.
When I finished my Master’s in Leiden in 2020 I told myself: “I will never work in academia”. Here I am starting my fourth month as a PhD-candidate at the Leiden Institute for History within the Dilemmas of Doing Diversity (DIDI)-project led by Marlou Schrover. However, I am still very happy with this decision!
I studied History at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and Arabic Language and Culture at the University of Amsterdam. After that I did my Master’s in Governance of Migration and Diversity (GMD) in Leiden. This was the field I was really interested in and in which I wanted to start my career. At first, I thought I wanted to do that outside of academia, because I missed a sense of urgency and impact. So, I decided to apply for the traineeship of the municipality of Amsterdam. Even though I enjoyed my two years there and I learned a lot I realized that my impact there was too little. More importantly I was not working within the field of migration and diversity or only superficially. I guess I also missed having the time to think. This PhD-project thus came at the perfect moment (even though I gave birth to my son on the day of the interview, it was meant to be).
The DIDI-project builds on the GMD-Master and consists of a group of interdisciplinary researchers who study how diverse societies can be cohesive and inclusive. I am the historian within the project, my research focuses on the history of diversity policies in the Netherlands since 1945. I will be looking at smaller and larger cities in the Netherlands, such as Rotterdam and Amsterdam (who are also consortium members of the project). My experience with the municipality of Amsterdam will be very useful. One dilemma of doing diversity is that, in order to be able to address all citizens equally, they must be treated unequally. I analyze which choices were made by policy makers and policy implementers, how they justified choices, and when and why choices, policies and implementations changed.
I look forward to the coming years in Leiden. Feel free to contact me for a cup of coffee and/or thoughts on my project!